LIBRARY^) 


CALIFORNIA  f 

01  EGO 


GEORG  BRANDES  IN 
LIFE  AND  LETTERS 


GEORG  BRANDES 


GEORG  BRANDES 

IN  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

BY 
JULIUS  MORITZEN 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

PROFESSOR  ROBERT  H.  FIFE 

Executive  Head,  Department  of  Germanic  Languages, 
Columbia  University 


D.    S.    COLYER,    Publisher 
Newark,    N.    J.,    U.    S.    A. 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 
BY  JULIUS  MORITZEN 


To  the  memory  of  my  wife, 
this  book  is  lovingly  dedicated. 


INTRODUCTION 

SOME  years  ago,  Georg  Brandes  declared  of 
himself:  "I  am  not  a  philosopher;  for  that 
I  am  too  small.  I  am  not  a  critic ;  for  that  I  am 
too  big." 

It  is  certain  that  to  call  the  great  Danish 
writer  merely  a  critic  would  be  to  limit  too  nar- 
rowly the  position  which  he  holds  in  the  culture 
of  Europe.  To  give  an  accurate  definition  of 
Brandes  we  should  have  to  invent  a  new  word; 
but  it  is  not  probable  that  we  should  need  the 
word  again,  as  it  is  not  likely  that  the  world  will 
ever  have  another  Brandes. 

We  associate  the  critic  with  literature,  but 
Georg  Brandes  is  bigger  than  literature.  We 
expect  the  critic  to  sweep  away  the  old  and  out- 
worn and  to  adjust  us  to  the  new  and  practical. 
That  has  been  Brandes'  work,  but  only  a  part 
of  it.  We  demand  of  the  critic  that  he  shall  in- 
terpret for  us  what  is  real  and  lasting  in  works 
of  art,  thus  revealing  to  the  passing  age  the 
invisible  spirit  of  itself  and  anticipating  the  ver- 
dict of  posterity  on  the  poet  and  artist  of  to-day. 

All  that  Brandes  has  done,  but  something 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

more  besides.  He  has  drawn  together  in  himself 
all  the  streams  of  culture  of  the  later  nineteenth 
and  earlier  twentieth  century  as  expressed  in 
European  letters  and  esthetics.  He  has  not  con- 
sciously created  an  esthetic  or  philosophical 
system.  He  has,  however,  fused  together  the 
million  fragments  of  European  culture  and 
thrown  over  them  the  light  of  his  own  bright 
realism.  What  he  has  wrought  and  represents 
is  not  a  brilliant  mosaic  of  ideas,  but  a  genuinely 
unique  picture  of  the  best  in  European  culture 
during  two  and  a  half  generations. 

When  Brandes  finished  his  studies  in  Copen- 
hagen sixty  years  ago,  Danish  life  and  literature 
were  still  tied  by  the  bonds  of  a  narrow  ortho- 
doxy. Conservatism  still  ruled  the  university 
and  intellectual  circles,  and  the  heavy  mysticism 
of  Kierkegaard  hung  over  souls  of  the  younger 
men.  Into  this  atmosphere  young  Brandes 
brought  a  fresh  spirit  of  freedom,  lifting  the 
heavy  curtains  of  literary  convention  and  letting 
in  a  light  of  realism  from  the  land  of  Saint 
Beuve  and  Renan.  He  went  to  France  and 
learned  from  Taine  that  literature  must  be  the 
expression  of  the  collective  spirit  of  a  people.  He 
went  to  England  and  learned  from  John  Stuart 
Mill  the  explosive  doctrine  of  the  political  eman- 

viii 


INTRODUCTION 

cipation  of  woman.  He  came  back  and  pro- 
claimed these  things  in  his  brilliant  way  in  the 
"Nyt  Dansk  Maanedskrift,"  a  leading  publica- 
tion of  the  day,  and  in  many  pamphlets  and  lec- 
tures. He  delivered  that  series  of  epoch-making 
lectures  that  form  the  "Main  Currents  in  Nine- 
teenth Century  Literature" ;  a  book  as  profound 
as  philosophy  and  as  interesting  as  romance.  He 
gathered  around  him  a  group  of  young  crusaders 
who  believed  that  henceforth  in  Denmark  theol- 
ogy and  literature  must  walk  separately. 

The  big-wigs  of  the  university  branded  him  as 
a  false  prophet  and  refused  him  a  professorship. 
He  fought  the  same  sort  of  battle  at  Copenhagen 
that  about  the  same  time,  on  a  much  smaller 
scale,  John  Fiske  was  fighting  at  Harvard.  Any 
man  who  in  that  day  declared  the  Positivist  phil- 
osophy to  be  his  creed  was  as  sure  to  fall  under 
the  ban  of  heresy  in  Cambridge  as  in  Copen- 
hagen. Anyone  who  did  not  hide  his  sympathy 
for  evolution  might  expect  in  either  place  to  be 
cast  into  outer  darkness.  Those  were  epic  days 
for  Danish  intellectual  circles,  for  Brandes  has 
always  been  a  natural  fighter.  Before  they  were 
ended,  the  door  was  flung  wide  open  for  the 
entry  of  modern  European  thought  and  the  for- 
ward march  of  Danish  literature  had  begun. 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

This  was  a  great  patriotic  service.  But  there 
was  another  just  as  great,  and  here  it  is  the 
whole  North  that  owes  a  debt  to  Brandes'  pow- 
erful pen.  He  first  opened  the  way  for  Scan- 
dinavian authors  to  an  understanding  audience 
in  Germany,  France  and  England.  Through  his 
articles  and  essays  the  reading  public  of  the 
world  outside  got  their  first  knowledge  of  Danish 
writers  like  Jacobsen.  Brandes  leveled  the  path 
on  which  Ibsen  walked  into  a  world-wide  popu- 
larity. He  discovered  and  proclaimed  to  the 
world  the  genius  of  Strindberg,  Sweden's  great- 
est master  of  the  psychological  drama.  Before 
his  fiftieth  birthday  Georg  Brandes  was  the  rec- 
ognized ambassador  of  Northern  letters  at  the 
court  of  European  culture. 

But  we  no  longer  think  of  him  merely  as  a 
citizen  of  Scandinavia,  still  less  of  Denmark.  He 
interpreted  the  North  to  Europe,  but  before  that 
mission  was  performed  he  had  begun  to  inter- 
pret Europe  to  itself.  In  early  years  he  had  set 
forth  English  naturalism  and  French  realism  to 
his  fellow  countrymen,  but  with  an  eye  always 
on  Denmark  and  Danish  conditions.  But  follow- 
ing this  he  came  into  his  own  as  a  critic  of  all 
European  literatures.  He  early  fathomed  for 
the  French  the  genius  of  their  own  Zola  and 


INTRODUCTION 

Maupassant.  He  was  the  first  foreigner  to  com- 
prehend and  expound  the  rise  of  the  realistic 
school  of  Hauptmann  and  Sudermann  in  Ger- 
many. He  made  Nietzsche's  acquaintance  and 
showed  a  profound  appreciation  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  superman  before  the  German  thinker 
had  a  corporal's  guard  of  followers  in  his  own 
country.  His  interpretation  of  Goethe  extends 
over  more  than  a  generation  and  was  finally 
made  into  two  portly  volumes  after  his  seven- 
tieth birthday. 

Georg  Brandes'  work  on  Shakespeare,  the 
highwater  mark  of  his  critical  insight,  is  the 
most  brilliant  esthetic  study  of  the  great  Briton 
in  any  non-English  tongue.  His  extraordinary 
linguistic  equipment  enabled  him  to  break  into 
the  sealed  world  of  the  Slav.  His  journey  into 
Poland  and  his  studies  of  the  Polish  people 
brought  the  social  and  political  problems  of  that 
race  'into  the  range  of  Western  Europe.  He 
pushed  his  studies  further  eastward  into  Russia. 
His  appreciation  of  the  genius  of  the  Russian 
Byron,  Puschkin;  of  Dostojewsky,  and  Tolstoy 
brought  these  great  writers  and  their  works  in 
sharp  outline  to  the  knowledge  of  circles  of  the 
North  and  West  when  they  had  previously  been 
little  more  than  strange  and  hard  names. 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

There  are  three  great  attributes  which  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  of  a  critic :  the  courage  to  brave 
tradition,  the  willingness  to  accept  the  new,  and 
a  freedom  from  inherited  and  traditional  bias. 
All  of  these  Georg  Brandes  possesses  in  a  high 
degree.  There  have  been  times  when  he  seemed 
too  ready  for  a  fight  and  those  who  have  attacked 
him  have  usually  had  reason  to  remember  it. 
From  the  days  more  than  fifty  years  ago  when 
he  braved  the  reactionaries  of  Copenhagen,  down 
to  and  through  the  war  and  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, he  has  never  been  afraid  to  stand  alone 
against  a  powerful  public  opinion.  He  is  not 
one  of  those  who  cling  to  the  false  jewel  of  con- 
sistency. He  has  never  hesitated  to  change  his 
theories  nor  to  raise  a  new  battle  flag,  and  in  his 
long  life  he  has  passed  through  many  different 
stages.  He  has  been  a  radical  collectivist  with 
Taine,  a  radical  individualist  with  Michelan- 
gelo and  Goethe,  and  a  radical  aristocrat  with 
Nietzsche.  He  has  been  independent  and  inter- 
national always,  but  reactionary  never. 

Some  men  seem  to  come  into  life  loaded  with 
traditional  prejudice.  Brandes  had  no  such  loose 
ballast  aboard  and  he  has  in  a  quite  extraordi- 
nary degree  been  able  to  see  eye  to  eye  with  each 
successive  generation  and  recognize  the  value  of 

xii 


INTRODUCTION 

each  new  movement  as  it  appeared.  Perhaps  this 
is  due  in  part  to  his  Jewish  heritage.  Werner 
Sombart  has  pointed  out  how  valuable  a  part 
the  Jew  plays  in  the  business  life  of  Northern 
Europe  as  an  economic  reagent,  setting  in  motion 
the  Teutonic  mass,  which,  whether  North  Ger- 
man or  Dutch  or  Scandinavian,  has  something 
of  the  stolidity  and  conservatism  in  its  nature 
which  needs  and  responds  to  agitation.  It  is 
something  like  the  role  of  chemical  reagent  that 
Brandes  has  played  in  the  world,  and  which  no 
man  could  play  who  came  to  his  work  loaded  by 
such  a  weight  of  national,  religious  and  social 
prejudices  as  most  of  us  lap  up  with  the  milk 
of  childhood. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  this  freedom 
is  joined  with  a  very  positive  idealism.  The  man 
who  can  present  the  work  of  Michelangelo  and 
Shakespeare  and  Goethe  and  Tolstoy  and  Zola 
and  Strindberg  with  equal  fairness  and  equal 
sympathy  has  within  him  a  lofty  ideal  of  human- 
ity and  a  deep  sense  of  the  essential  unity  of  all 
ages  and  all  cultures. 

Brandes  adds  to  this  a  constant  freshness  of 
appreciation,  eternally  youthful  and  instinct  with 
the  spirit  of  a  Columbus  and  a  crusader.  To 
master  the  genius  of  Shakespeare  in  his  sixties, 

xiii 


INTRODUCTION 

Goethe  in  his  seventies  and  Michelangelo  in  his 
eighties  indicates  an  ever  fresh  creativeness  that 
time  cannot  fade  nor  custom  stale. 

Georg  Brandes  is  unique  in  his  contribution  to 
the  development  of  European  thought.  Cer- 
tainly he  is  also  unique  in  the  history  of  Den- 
mark. No  other  Dane  has  ever  stretched  him- 
self like  a  great  zone  across  the  history  of  his 
country  as  Brandes  has  done.  No  Dane,  and  it 
may  be  assumed,  no  Scandinavian,  has  ever  so 
thoroughly  represented  his  people's  cultural  his- 
tory. But  he  has  done  more  than  that.  He  is 
the  only  critic  who  has  ever  completely  identified 
himself  with  the  whole  of  Europe's  culture  and 
the  entire  spirit  of  the  age.  For  such  a  man, 
then,  the  name  of  critic  is  merely  too  narrow — 
call  him  rather  an  apostle  of  culture. 

ROBERT   HERNDON   FIFE. 
Columbia  University,  June  1st,  1922. 


XIV 


PREFACE 

PERHAPS  no  greater  obligation  rests  on  a 
writer  who  owes  much  of  his  advancement 
to  the  inspiring  message  of  another  writer,  than 
the  discharge  of  such  a  literary  debt.  In  the 
present  instance,  the  genius  and  influence  of 
Georg  Brandes  have  been  so  overwhelmingly  the 
moving  force  for  whatever  one  individual  may 
have  accomplished,  that  the  least  that  can  be  done 
in  return  is  to  set  down  in  the  pages  that  are  to 
follow  some  facts  in  connection  with  a  literary 
career  of  unique  character  which  might  other- 
wise be  left  untold  until  such  a  time  when  the 
principal  under  discussion  is  no  longer  here. 
This  slight  tribute  to  Georg  Brandes  is  therefore 
paid  to  him  as  the  great  scholar  and  critic  enters 
the  ranks  of  octogenarians. 

More  than  twenty-five  years  ago  the  start  of 
a  journalistic  career  in  America  brought  with  it 
the  opportunity  to  place  Georg  Brandes  before 
the  American  reading  public  through  the  col- 
umns of  representative  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines. The  present  writer,  Danish  like  Brandes, 
on  the  advice  of  the  late  Jacob  A.  Riis,  embraced 

xv 


PREFACE 

journalism  as  his  avocation  in  life  and  set  him- 
self the  task  to  interpret  Scandinavian  culture 
and  literature  to  American  readers.  .  In  particu- 
lar it  was  the  works  of  Georg  Brandes  that  lent 
themselves  quite  readily  to  such  treatment  as 
might  inform  the  people  of  the  western  world 
regarding  the  outstanding  qualities  in  an  author 
whose  fame  Europe  had  long  acknowledged. 

Aside  from  what  the  long  established  works 
of  Brandes  in  the  original  Danish  required  in 
order  to  make  intelligent  comment,  as  certain 
other  books  appeared  in  English  translations 
there  was  a  further  opportunity  for  bringing 
them  to  the  attention  of  Americans.  But  while 
"Main  Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Litera- 
ture," "William  Shakespeare,"  and  a  number  of 
lesser  books  have  been  translated  from  time  to 
time,  there  yet  remain  to  see  the  light  in  the 
English  language  such  monumental  achieve- 
ments as  Brandes'  "Goethe,"  "Voltaire,"  "Julius 
Caesar,"  and  "Michelangelo."  If  in  this  mono- 
graph the  greater  part  of  attention  is  directed  to 
these  four  works,  the  reason  is  that  they  not 
only  sum  up  his  labors  of  the  past  twenty  years, 
but  in  a  measure  afford  the  better  insight  into 
the  personality  of  this  Danish  critic. 

When  Georg  Brandes  attained  his  three-score 
xvi 


PREFACE 

and  ten  the  present  writer  believed  that  the  time 
had  arrived  for  the  presentation  of  such  facts 
as  would  furnish  a  compact  picture  of  his  unique 
career.  However,  circumstances  prevented  the 
execution  of  the  task.  Now  that  the  literary 
world  has  honored  Brandes  on  his  eightieth 
birthday,  "Georg  Brandes  in  Life  and  Letters" 
comes  before  the  reader  as  a  very  slight  token 
of  the  esteem  in  which  the  present  writer  holds 
the  man  whose  craftsmanship  stands  to  him  as 
a  loadstar  on  the  literary  firmament.  If  it  will 
be  found  that  what  is  here  presented  is  sym- 
pathetic throughout,  let  it  be  understood  that  ap- 
preciation and  not  criticism  per  se  has  been  the 
motive.  In  tracing  this  unusual  career  the  pur- 
pose has  been  to  draw  some  such  general  pic- 
ture as  might  afford  an  insight  into  the  char- 
acteristics of  Georg  Brandes  as  literary  artist 
and  world-citizen.  If  this  purpose  has  been 
accomplished,  it  will  be  reward  enough  for  what 
at  any  rate  has  been  a  labor  of  love. 

J.  M. 


xvn 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION VII 

PREFACE XV 

CHAPTER 

I     BREAKING   A    LANCE   WITH   TRADITION 

AND  STUPIDITY 21 

II    TRIBUTE  PAID  BRANDES  ON  OCCASION  OF 

GOLDEN  JUBILEE 26 

III  MAIN  CURRENTS  IN  NINETEENTH  CEN- 

TURY LITERATURE 32 

IV  NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SHY- 

LOCK  AND  HAMLET 39 

V    FROM   HANS   CHRISTIAN   ANDERSEN   TO 

FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 45 

VI    BRANDES'  SEARCHING  ANALYSIS  OF  THE 

FAUST  IN  WOLFGANG  GOETHE       .     .       52 

/       VII     FRANCOIS  DE  VOLTAIRE  AND  THE  INFLU- 
ENCE OF  FRENCH  CULTURE      ...       59 

VIII    NEW   ESTIMATE   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR   AS 

RULER  AND  CITIZEN 65 

IX    BRANDES  SELF-REVEALED  IN  MICHELAN- 
GELO BUONARROTI 71 

X    FLORENTINE  MASTER-CRAFTSMAN  AS  SEEN 

BY  DANISH  CRITIC 79 

xviii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XI     EARLY  HOME  LIFE  OF  BRANDES  AND  THE 

JEWISH  QUESTION      .     .     .    ' .     .     .       87 

i/       XII     EDMUND   GOSSE   IN   His  RELATIONS  TO 

GEORG  BRANDES 93 

XIII  CHAMPIONING  OPPRESSED  PEOPLES  WITH- 

OUT FEAR  OR  FAVOR 100 

XIV  SPOKESMAN  FOR  SCANDINAVIA'S  NEUTRAL- 

ITY IN  THE  WAR 106 

/       XV    GEORG  BRANDES  AS  IMPROMPTU  SPEAKER 

AND  PUBLICIST     . 114 

XVI    UNIQUE  INTERPRETATION  OF  GODS  AND 

HEROES  IN  HOMER 124 

XVII    THE   SCIENTIFIC    INTERNATIONALISM   OF 

GEORG  BRANDES  .     .     .     ...     .     129 

XVIII     BRANDES  AS  SEEN  BY  COLLEAGUES  AND 

CONTEMPORARIES       .     ,     .     .     .     .     136 

XIX    THE  LITERARY  WORKSHOP  OF  A  GREAT 

EUROPEAN  CRITIC 144 

XX    THE  BRANDES  ARCHIVE  IN  THE  ROYAL 

LIBRARY  OF  COPENHAGEN  150 


xix 


GEORG  BRANDES 
IN  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

BREAKING    A    LANCE    WITH    TRADITION    AND 
STUPIDITY 

AT  certain  periods  in  the  life  of  any  man 
who  has  attained  fame  it  is  customary  to 
glance  in  retrospect  across  the  years  that  have 
gone  to  the  making  of  the  sum  total  of  his  recog- 
nized achievement.  In  the  case  of  some  noted 
writer  it  may  be  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of 
literary  activity  that  furnishes  the  incentive  for 
a  reexamination  of  endeavor.  Or  perhaps  the 
attaining  of  his  three-score  and  ten  brings  re- 
newed publicity  to  bear  on  an  author  with  inter- 
national reputation.  Again,  it  may  remain  for 
Father  Time  to  wield  his  scythe  before  the  larger 
public  comes  to  a  full  recognition  of  what  such 
a  personality  means  to  his  generation. 

In  the  case  of  Georg  Brandes,  now  in  his 

21 


GEORG    BRANDES 

eighty-first  year,  not  only  is  it  good  to  know  that 
he  still  is  among  the  living  and  in  full  possession 
of  his  remarkable  faculties,  but  there  is  cumula- 
tive evidence  that  this  foremost  among  critics 
stands  complete  victor  in  a  battle  that  literary 
history  will  take  account  of  as  one  of  the  most 
important  fought  for  a  principle  that  knew  no 
compromise.  The  honors  paid  Brandes  on 
November  third,  1921,  the  fiftieth  anniversary 
of  his  first  lecture  at  the  University  of  Copen- 
hagen, went  to  prove  that  there  no  longer  is  any 
question  to  what  extent  he  has  brought  renown 
to  the  little  country,  where  his  name  at  one  time 
spelled  anathema  in  the  eyes  of  the  ultra-con- 
servatives. 

There  is  a  saying  of  Victor  Hugo's  to  the  ef- 
fect that  there  are  no  small  countries;  that  the 
greatness  of  a  nation  no  more  depends  upon  the 
number  of  its  inhabitants  than  the  greatness  of 
an  individual  is  to  be  measured  by  his  height.  In 
other  words,  quality  and  not  quantity  is  what 
counts.  If  nothing  more  were  to  be  adduced  to 
lift  Denmark  to  a  conspicuous  place  among  the 
nations,  the  fact  that  it  is  the  home  land  of 
Georg  Brandes  suffices  to  give  it  eminence.  The 
Danish  people  have  reason  to  feel  proud 
that  Brandes'  "William  Shakespeare,  a  Critical 

22 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

Study,"  years  ago  was  acclaimed  one  of  the  best 
works  ever  written  on  the  subject  of  the  im- 
mortal poet.  His  gallery  of  portraits,  conspicu- 
ous among  which  are  the  Goethe,  the  Voltaire, 
Julius  Caesar,  Michelangelo,  are  striking  testi- 
mony in  proof  of  the  fact  that  as  the  years  rolled 
on  Brandes  retained  his  remarkable  ability  to 
place  before  his  readers  characterizations  that 
make  living  the  personalities  that  have  aided  in 
shaping  world-events. 

Georg  Brandes  needs  no  apologist  at  this  late 
day.  From  the  first  appearance  of  his  "Dualism 
in  Our  Newest  Philosophy,"  written  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  to  the  recent  publication  of 
"Michelangelo  Buonarroti,"  his  writings  have 
constituted  landmarks  in  European  literary  his- 
tory. It  is,  of  course,  a  fact  that  in  "Main 
Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Literature," 
Brandes  has  produced  a  work  that  scholars  the 
world  over  recognize  as  one  of  the  most  unique 
contributions  to  the  history  of  literature.  And 
the  further  fact  that  the  six  volumes  constitut- 
ing this  work  are  available  in  English,  naturally 
make  it  better  known  to  American  audiences 
than  those  subsequent  books  not  yet  available  in 
translations. 

Few  writers  of  any  period  or  any  country 

23 


GEORG    BRANDES 

have  done  more  than  Brandes  toward  clarifying 
historical  facts  by  means  of  picturesque  descrip- 
tion. He  was  only  twenty-one  years  old  when 
he  was  awarded  the  gold  medal  of  the  University 
of  Copenhagen  for  his  essay  dealing  with  the 
fatalistic  tendencies  among  the  ancients.  Phil- 
osophy and  aesthetics  were  his  particular  studies. 
The  lucidity  of  his  style  and  the  delightful  man- 
ner in  which  he  could  convert  any  dry-as-dust 
subject  into  something  entertaining  was  out  of 
the  ordinary  at  that  day.  He  not  only  surprised 
but  irritated  the  staid  pedagogues  of  the  time. 
In  reality,  from  the  very  first  he  had  to  assume 
the  defensive.  He  had  opened  a  new  vein,  true 
enough,  but  it  was  for  him  to  prove  that  the  ore 
brought  to  the  surface  was  pure  and  inde- 
structible. 

Obtaining  his  doctor's  degree,  Georg  Brandes 
spent  several  years  in  travel.  It  was  then  that 
he  met  such  men  as  Mill,  Taine,  Renan  and 
others  whose  influence  on  that  particular  period 
was  indisputable.  Nor  did  they  fail  to  impress 
a  mind  which  like  his  was -receptive  to  a  degree. 
Their  progressive  ideals  appealed  wonderfully  to 
this  young  Dane,  who  early  became  familiar 
with  the  leading  languages  of  Europe  and  who 
thus  was  able  to  go  directly  to  the  fountain-heads 

24 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

and  investigate  for  himself  the  literary  treasures 
of  the  various  countries  visited  by  him.  It  is  this 
linguistic  facility  which  made  it  possible  for 
Brandes  to  write  so  intimately  about  the  great 
characters  of  history. 

It  was  on  his  return  to  Denmark,  when  he  was 
not  yet  thirty,  that  Georg  Brandes  began  to  de- 
liver at  the  University  of  Copenhagen  the  series 
of  lectures  that  did  nothing  less  than  revolution- 
ize history-teaching  in  northern  Europe.  He 
humanized  epochal  events  by  centering  the  atten- 
tion upon  this  or  that  great  personality.  The 
fruits  of  these  lectures,  delivered  over  a  period 
of  ten  years,  we  find  incorporated  in  the  "Main 
Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Literature/' 


25 


CHAPTER  II 

TRIBUTE  PAID  BRANDES  ON  OCCASION  OF  GOLDEN 
JUBILEE 

ON  the  occasion  of  Georg  Brandes'  golden 
jubilee  as  university  lecturer,  November  the 
third,  1921,  as  already  referred  to,  Brandes  him- 
self appeared  before  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished gatherings  ever  assembled  at  Copen- 
hagen, where  he  spoke  on  Homer  with  special 
reference  to  the  gods  and  heroes  of  the  Hellenic 
period;  revealing  himself  as  ever  a  master  of 
speech,  and  a  Homeric  interpreter  able  to  throw 
new  and  interesting  light  on  the  great  Odyssey 
and  the  Iliad. 

There  will  be  occasion  later  to  make  further 
mention  of  this  address.  What  is  of  immediate 
concern  is  the  tribute  paid  the  great  critic  by 
scholars  who  embraced  the  opportunity  to  voice 
their  appreciation.  For  instance,  in  his  address 
of  welcome  to  Brandes,  Professor  Olaf  Thorn- 
sen,  of  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  called  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  every  new  idea  has  to 

26 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

pass  through  three  stages.  The  first  is  when  the 
originator  of  a  new  idea  stands  in  the  open  while 
the  battle  for  and  against  his  idea  rages  all 
around  him.  The  second  stage  is  when  the  orig- 
inator himself  retreats  into  the  background,  the 
battle  standing  between  this  idea  and  others. 
Finally,  the  third  stage  arrives  when  this  par- 
ticular idea  has  conquered. 

"Georg  Brandes,  it  is  in  this  manner  that  you 
have  scored  a  victory,"  declared  Professor  Thorn- 
sen.  "We  bring  you  today  our  heartfelt  thanks  for 
what  you  have  created  and  given  us ;  not  only  us, 
but  humanity.  Everything  you  have  produced 
has  the  stamp  of  life.  We  rise  to  greet  you  and 
to  pay  you  tribute." 

The  personal  element  was  in  evidence  as  Pro- 
fessor J.  L.  Heiberg  addressed  Brandes  as  fol- 
lows: "I  am  a  student  from  that  day  which  we 
celebrate  this  evening.  But  Georg  Brandes'  fa- 
mous lectures  went  right  over  the  head  of  the 
young  man  from  the  provinces  who  was  rather 
shy  and  on  whom  the  clamor  that  the  lectures 
aroused  had  a  somewhat  frightening  effect.  For 
those  who  can  look  back  that  far  it  seems  little  less 
than  remarkable  to  observe  the  change  that  has 
taken  place  in  the  public's  attitude  toward  Georg 
Brandes.  Fifty  years  ago  he  appeared  as  the 

27 


GEORG    BRANDES 

rebel  and  destroyer  of  all  that  seemed  holy  and 
honored  in  the  eyes  of  the  community.  To-day 
he  is  looked  upon  as  some  kind  of  national  saint, 
whose  aid  is  sought  in  every  sort  of  trouble,  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  To  be  sure,  he  is  not  with- 
out opponents,  and  who  can  think  of  Georg 
Brandes  minus  polemics?  But  even  his  worst 
antagonists  must  treat  him  with  respect.  Attacks 
like  those  of  former  days  would  no  longer  be 
tolerated.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  general  opinion 
now  that  the  university  made  a  mistake,  princi- 
pally to  its  own  injury,  when  it  failed  to  offer 
him  the  chair  of  aesthetics.  This  is  something 
the  university  itself  has  admitted.  Results  have 
shown  that  the  stir  he  made  among  the  peaceful 
waters  was  for  the  best.  All  of  the  newer  lit- 
erary research  here  at  home  has  had  its  foun- 
tain head  in  his  'Main  Currents.'  The  younger 
generation  hardly  realizes  how  many  mouldy 
dogmas  and  prejudices  these  have  thrown  to  the 
winds.  But  neither  the  soft  cushions  of  admira- 
tion nor  the  cold  rays  of  disparagement  have 
been  able  to  either  smother  the  fire  that  burns  in 
Georg  Brandes  or  to  extinguish  it." 

As  for  the  further  tributes  paid  the  Danish 
critic  on  that  memorable  evening  in  November  of 
last  year,  the  torch-light  procession  by  the  uni- 

28 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

versity  students  was  of  a  nature  to  show  that 
the  youth  of  Denmark  are  not  unconscious  of 
what  the  country  owes  the  master  of  the  craft. 
The  spokesman  for  the  Students'  Association, 
addressing  Brandes  as  the  latter  viewed  the  pro- 
cession from  the  balcony,  where  a  special  com- 
pany had  assembled,  declared  that  the  young 
people  came  to  him  with  flaming  torches  to  bring 
him  their  thanks  for  the  light  that  he,  Brandes, 
had  lit  at  that  time  in  the  long  ago  when  every- 
thing seemed  dark  and  somber.  But  it  was  he 
who  lifted  high  the  torch  of  honor  so  that  all 
could  see  that  the  mystery  of  life  was  not  what 
it  seemed  to  be.  A  time  came  when  the  sun 
broke  through  the  mist  and  all  desired  to  know 
the  truth.  In  the  front  rank  stood  Georg 
Brandes  pointing  the  way,  until  now  once  more 
the  light  had  become  obscured  and  brother  was 
fighting  brother. 

"We  appeal  to  you  to  once  more  be  with  us," 
spoke  the  leader  for  the  Students'  Association. 
"Be  our  standard  bearer  of  light  against  the 
darkness !" 

Georg  Brandes  replied:  "For  seven  years  the 
torches  of  war  have  been  swung  over  the  earth 
and  laid  low  mankind  and  the  work  of  man.  The 
youths  of  the  nations  were  exposed  to  that  fire 

29 


GEORG    BRANDES 

which  in  the  form  of  shot  and  shell  tore  them 
limb  by  limb,  or  as  poison  gas  cut  through  bone 
and  marrow. 

"But  your  torches  are  the  torches  of  peace. 
They  produce  light  without  burning.  The  fire 
in  your  hands  is  the  encouraging  symbol  of  lib- 
erty, for  without  light  there  is  no  freedom.  But 
very  often  the  word  freedom  is  but  a  false  pre- 
text for  the  right  to  oppress  and  exploit.  Never 
were  there  so  many  interdictions  as  now.  Force 
and  compulsion  assert  themselves  in  the  name 
of  virtue,  disguised  as  protection,  and  sometimes 
in  the  name  of  revolution. 

"Enlightenment  and  liberty  are  the  two  faces 
of  the  goddess  of  fredom  which  she,  the  double- 
headed  genius,  turns  toward  us.  Fire  is  to  us 
the  symbol  of  them  both.  When  the  sun  shines 
we  scarcely  notice  the  fire,  but  in  the  darkness 
that  now  surrounds  us  we  perceive  even  the 
faintest  spark.  From  such  a  fire  can  come  con- 
flagration, but  also  masterpieces. 

"The  smoking  torch  is  as  the  holy,  luminous 
flame  lifted  against  the  two  great  partners;  the 
light  extinguishers  and  the  incendiaries;  states- 
men that  use  fine  words  but  are  without  talent, 
and  fanatics  full  of  hate.  Stand  on  your  guard 
against  both.  Protect  the  light  against  extinc- 

30 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

tion,  as  well  as  against  misuse.  Your  torches 
are  representative  of  youth.  Prometheus  stole 
the  fire  from  heaven  to  give  humanity  its  hope. 

"Shortly  your  torches  will  be  converted  into 
a  bonfire.  In  such  a  fire  were  thrust  those  great 
proclaimers  of  light  and  truth,  Johan  Huss,  Cal- 
vette,  Giordano  Bruno  and  many  others.  But 
over  such  a  pyre  there  hovers  also  the  bird 
Phoenix  which  lifts  itself  high  on  its  wings  of 
gold  and  purple.  Thus  ideas  are  reborn,  with 
certain  intervals;  reborn  and  renewed  in  your 
youth." 


31 


CHAPTER  III 

MAIN  CURRENTS  IN  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 
LITERATURE 

WITH  the  entrance  of  the  new  century, 
Brandes  was  asked  his  opinion  as  to  what 
he  considered  was  in  store  for  the  newcomer  with 
regard  to  literary  development  and  its  concomi- 
tants. The  answer  was  characteristic  of  the 
man  and  his  methods.  As  the  author  of  "Main 
Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Literature"  it 
was  presupposed  that  no  greater  authority  on 
the  subject  could  be  had.  And  yet  Brandes  re- 
plied :  "I  am  not  fit  to  be  a  prophet.  Existence 
is  to  be  viewed  from  so  many  angles  that  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  predict  what  the  future, 
even  the  nearest  future,  has  in  store.  In  litera- 
ture, the  individual  may,  perhaps,  develop  him- 
self to  a  greater  extent  than  ever  before,  so  that 
it  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  point  to 
groups. 

"Nevertheless,  intellectual  currents  are  bound 
to  appear.  The  past  shows  us  many  such;  the 
rebirth  of  the  visualization  of  Greco-Roman  an- 

32 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

tiquity  and  art  was  such  a  general  movement. 
Humanism,  the  Reformation,  classicism,  writ- 
ings aiming  at  the  instilling  of  knowledge,  ro- 
manticism, were  currents  that  found  ability  and 
power  lending  their  service  in  many  lands. 

"Having  ruled  for  half  a  century  (1850  to 
1900),  romanticism  holds  the  record  in  point 
of  time  and  no  other  current  has  been  able  to 
equal  it.  Realism  may  come  nearest,  but  in  so 
many  forms  that  it  must  be  classed  under  that 
other  heading.  As  for  symbolism,  it  has  only 
made  itself  felt  in  the  narrower  domain  of  lyric 
poetry. 

"What  I  might  venture  to  say  is  something 
like  this  :  It  is  unthinkable  that  realism  has 
played  its  last  card.  Whether  it  appears  as  a 
searching  of  the  soul,  or  the  picturing  of  morals 
or  as  representing  mass  sentiment  or  a  mere 
telling  of  events,  realism  always  will  flourish  un- 
der changing  names.  It  may  be  said  with  cer- 
tainty that  the  return  to  the  churchly  point  of 
view,  whether  expressed  by  Huysmans  and 
Bourget  in  France,  or  by  Johannes  Jorgensen  in 
Denmark,  and  partly  by  Strindberg  and  Gar- 
borg  elsewhere  in  Scandinavia,  this  returning  is 
nothing  more  than  a  ripple  on  the  surface;  not 
the  damning  of  the  stream. 

33 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"It  is  very  likely  that  unfettered,  imaginative 
art  will  maintain  itself  alongside  the  study  of  the 
realistic,  and  it  would  be  the  essence  of  narrow- 
ness to  see  in  this  any  intellectual  retrogression. 

"Since  different  personalities  find  themselves 
attracted  by  different  periods  it  is  likewise  plaus- 
ible that  historical  art  will  be  able  to  thrive  next 
to  the  art  that  reproduces  the  present.  The  de- 
velopment of  historical  research  and  history 
writing  will  probably  result  in  authors  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  historians.  Any  direct  awak- 
ening of  the  past  will  hardly  take  place  through 
such  an  art.  The  writer  can  never  give  off  any- 
thing but  his  own  individuality.  But  there  are 
those  who  find  their  fullest  expression  in  utter- 
ances masked  by  the  past. 

"As  the  literature  of  the  future  as  well  as  all 
future  art  necessarily  will  concern  a  much  larger 
public  than  in  the  past,  and  confront  a  public 
which  modern  democracy  has  inspired  with  a 
craving  for  knowledge  and  for  art,  popular  lit- 
erature and  popular  dramatics,  novels  and  come- 
dies, strongly  colored  by  the  political  and  social 
life,  will  unfold  and  flourish  to  a  degree  hereto- 
fore unknown.  In  contrast  to  this  out  and  out 
popular  art-world,  a  literature  appealing  to  the 

34 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

most  refined  and  exacting  reading  circle  un- 
doubtedly will  also  thrive." 

Written  some  fifteen  years  subsequently  to  his 
"Main  Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Litera- 
ture," Georg  Brandes  virtually  predicted  for  the 
twentieth  century  a  literature  that  the  first  two 
decades  have  made  a  fact.  As  for  the  factors 
that  inspired  him  to  engage  in  that  monumental 
work,  it  was  not  the  earlier  lecture  form  that 
alone  spurred  him  to  the  task.  His  real  intent 
he  tells  in  the  introduction  to  the  first  volume,  as 
follows : 

"It  is  my  purpose  in  the  present  work  to  trace 
the  outlines  of  a  psychology  of  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century  by  means  of  a  study 
of  certain  main  groups  and  movements  in  Euro- 
pean literature.  The  stormy  year  of  1848,  a  his- 
torical turning  point,  and  hence  a  break,  is  the 
limit  to  which  I  purpose  following  the  process  of 
development.  The  period  between  the  beginning 
and  the  middle  of  the  century  presents  a  spec- 
tacle of  many  scattered  and  apparently  discon- 
nected literary  efforts  and  phenomena.  But  he 
who  carefully  observes  the  main  currents  of  lit- 
erature perceives  that  their  great  movements  are 
all  conditioned  by  one  great  leading  movement 
with  its  ebb  and  flow,  namely,  the  gradual  fading 

35 


GEORG    BRANDES 

away  and  disappearance  of  the  ideas  and  feel- 
ings of  the  preceding  century  and  the  return 
of  the  idea  of  progress  in  new,  ever  higher- 
mounting  waves. 

"The  central  subject  of  this  work,  then,  is  the 
reaction  in  the  first  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century  against  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  vanquishment  of  that  reaction.  This  his- 
toric incident  is  of  European  interest,  and  can 
only  be  understood  by  a  comparative  study  of 
European  literature.  The  comparative  view  pos- 
sesses the  double  advantage  of  bringing  foreign 
literature  so  near  to  us  that  we  can  assimilate  it, 
and  of  removing  our  own  until  we  are  enabled 
to  see  it  in  its  true  perspective.  .  .  . 

"Literary  history  is,  in  its  profoundest  sig- 
nificance, psychology,  the  study  of  the  soul,  its 
history.  A  book  which  belongs  to  the  literature 
of  a  nation,  be  it  romance,  drama,  or  historical 
work,  is  a  gallery  of  character  portraits,  a  store- 
house of  feelings  and  thoughts.  The  more  mo- 
mentous the  feelings,  the  greater,  clearer,  and 
wider  the  thoughts,  the  more  remarkable  and 
at  the  same  time  representative  the  characters, 
so  much  the  greater  is  the  historical  value  of  the 
book,  so  much  more  clearly  does  it  reveal  to  us 

36 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

what  was  really  happening  in  men's  minds  in  a 
given  country  at  a  given  period." 

The  six  volumes  of  "Main  Currents  in  Nine- 
teenth Century  Literature"  divide  themselves 
into  "The  Emigrant  Literature,"  "The  Roman- 
tic School  in  Germany,"  "The  Reaction  in 
France,"  "Naturalism  in  England,"  "The  Ro- 
mantic School  in  France,"  and  "Young  Ger- 
many." The  reading  of  this  sixth  volume  brings 
forcibly  to  mind  what  might  have  been  Ger- 
many's fate  in  later  years  had  the  influence  of 
the  French  revolution  of  July,  1830,  been  more 
far-reaching  in  its  effect  on  the  Germans  of  that 
day.  As  for  the  year  1848,  it  is  a  year  of  great 
spiritual  significance,  writes  Brandes.  "After  it 
men  feel  and  think  and  write  quite  otherwise 
than  they  did  before  it.  In  literature  it  is  the 
red  line  of  separation  that  divides  our  century 
and  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  It  was 
a  year  of  jubilee,  like  that  instituted  by  the  old 
Hebrew  law,  that  fiftieth  year,  in  which  the 
trumpet  was  to  be  sounded  throughout  the  land, 
which  was  to  be  hallowed,  and  in  which  liberty 
was  to  be  proclaimed  'throughout  all  the  land 
unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof  (Lev.  xxv.  8, 
etc.).  This  year,  with  its  quick  heartbeat,  its 
all-subduing  youthful  ardor,  was  like  that  Bible 

37 


GEORG    BRANDES 

year  of  jubilee,  a  year  of  returning  into  posses- 
sion, a  year  of  redemption  in  which  'they  that 
had  been  sold  were  redeemed  again.'  To  this 
day  we  imbibe  youthful  enthusiasm  from  its  day 
of  March  and  learn  important  lessons  from  its 
day  of  November." 

Terminating,  as  the  "Main  Currents"  do,  with 
the  year  1848,  Georg  Brandes  pushes  his  analysis 
beyond  that  period,  almost  to  the  time  when  he 
began  his  series  of  lectures  at  the  Copenhagen 
University.  Innumerable  monographs  subse- 
quent to  the  completion  of  the  main  work  treat 
intimately  of  the  literary  characters  that  ranked 
high  during  the  last  century.  As  for  the  result 
achieved,  Brandes  affirms  that  "it  is  self-evident 
that  the  standpoint  here  adopted  is  a  personal 
one.  .  .  .  Regarded  impersonally,  the  litera- 
ture of  a  half-century  is  nothing  but  a  chaos  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  books  in  many  lan- 
guages. ...  It  has  been  the  author's  aim 
to  do  justice,  as  far  as  in  him  lay,  to  every  single 
person  and  phenomena  he  has  described.  .  .  . 
The  power  which  has  grouped,  contrasted, 
thrown  into  relief  or  suppressed,  lengthened  or 
shortened,  placed  in  full  light,  in  half  light,  or 
in  shadow,  is  none  other  than  that  never  en- 
tirely conscious  power  to  which  we  usually  give 
the  name  of  art." 

38 


CHAPTER  IV 

NEW    LIGHT    ON    THE    CHARACTERS    OF    SHYLOCK 
AND  HAMLET 

IN  considering  Georg  Brandes'  "William 
"Shakespeare,  a  Critical  Study,"  two  charac- 
ters are  of  such  outstanding  importance  to  the 
psychological  aspects  of  the  Brandes  viewpoint 
that  they  may  be  looked  upon  as  fairly  indicative 
of  the  Danish  writer's  intention  in  adding  to  ex- 
isting Shakespeareana.  Certainly,  in  the  case  of 
Hamlet  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that,  himself  a 
Dane,  Brandes  can  claim  kinship  to  a  personality 
which,  born  of  fancy  or  not,  had  Scandinavia 
for  environment.  With  regard  to  the  "Merchant 
of  Venice,"  the  character  of  Shylock  is  here 
analyzed  by  one  derived  from  the  same  race.  The 
Jewish  ancestry  of  Georg  Brandes,  of  which 
more  is  to  be  said  later,  nevertheless  is  not  to  be 
considered  as  responsible  for  whatever  favorable 
estimate  he  is  rendering  of  Shylock  as  against 
most  of  the  stage  representations  of  to-day. 

Controversy  has  not  yet  ceased  as  to  how  Shy- 
lock   should  be  presented.     Brandes   says   that 

39 


GEORG    BRANDES 

what  is  most  surprising  to  him  is  ,the  instinct 
of  genius  which  Shakespeare  has  seized  upon 
and  reproduced  racial  characteristics  and  em- 
phasized what  is  peculiarly  Jewish  in  Shylock's 
culture. 

"While  Marlowe,  according  to  custom,  made 
his  Barabas  revel  in  mythological  similes," 
Brandes  writes,  "Shakespeare  indicates  that 
Shylock's  culture  is  founded  entirely  on  the  Old 
Testament,  and  makes  commerce  his  only  point 
of  contact  with  the  civilization  of  later  times. 
All  his  parallels  are  drawn  from  the  Patriarchs 
and  the  Prophets.  With  what  unction  he  speaks 
when  he  justifies  himself  by  the  example  of 
Jacob!  His  own  race  is  always  'our  sacred 
nation/  and  he  feels  that  'the  curse  has  never 
fallen  upon  it'  until  his  daughter  fled  with  his 
treasures.  Jewish,  too,  is  Shylock's  insistence 
on  the  letter  of  the  law,  his  reliance  upon  statu- 
tory rights,  which  are,  indeed,  the  only  rights 
society  allows  him,  and  the  partly  instinctive, 
partly  defiant,  restriction  of  his  moral  ideas  to 
the  principle  of  retribution." 

Brandes  finds  that  the  names  of  the  Jews  and 
Jewesses  who  appear  in  "The  Merchant  of 
Venice,"  Shakespeare  has  taken  from  the  Old 
Testament.  "We  find  in  Genesis  (x.  24),"  he 

40 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

writes,  "the  name  Salah  (Hebrew  Schelach;  at 
that  time  appearing  as  the  name  of  a  Maronite 
from  Lebanon:  Shialac)  out  of  which  Shake- 
speare has  made  Shylock;  and  in  Genesis  (xi.  29) 
there  occurs  the  name  Isach  (she  who  looks  out, 
who  spies),  spelt  Jessica,  the  girl  whom  Shylock 
accuses  of  a  fondness  for  'clambering  up  to  case- 
ments' and  'thrusting  her  head  into  the  public 
street'  to  see  the  maskers  pass." 

Shakespeare's  audiences  were  familiar  with 
several  versions  of  the  story  of  the  Jew  who  re- 
lentlessly demanded  the  pound  of  flesh  pledged 
to  him  by  his  Christian  debtor,  and  was  at  last 
sent  empty  and  baffled  away,  and  even  forced  to 
become  a  Christian.  But  the  English  public  had 
no  acquaintance  with  the  Jews  except  in  books 
and  on  the  stage.  From  1290  until  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  they  were  entirely  ex- 
cluded from  England.  Every  prejudice  against 
them  was  free  to  flourish. 

"But  did  Shakespeare  share  in  these  religious 
prejudices?"  asks  Georg  Brandes.  He  answers 
his  own  question  by  stating  that  in  his  opinion 
Shakespeare  was  very  slightly  affected  by  them, 
if  at  all.  "Had  he  made  a  more  undisguised  ef- 
fort to  place  himself  at  Shylock's  standpoint," 
he  says,  "the  censorship,  on  the  one  hand,  would 

41 


GEORG    BRANDES 

have  intervened,  while  on  the  other  hand  the 
public  would  have  been  bewildered  and  alienated. 
It  is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  Shylock 
should  suffer  the  punishment  that  befalls  him. 
To  pay  him  out  for  his  stiffnecked  vengefulness, 
he  is  mulcted  not  only  of  the  sum  he  lent  An- 
tonio, but  of  half  of  his  fortune,  and  is  finally, 
like  Marlowe's  'Jew  of  Malta,'  compelled  to 
change  his  religion." 

Brandes  considers  it  an  astonishing  fact  that, 
in  spite  of  all  other  conditions,  Shakespeare  suc- 
ceeded in  imparting  to  Shylock  so  much  right  in 
wrong,  so  much  humanity  in  inhumanity.  On 
this  point  he  says : 

"The  spectator  sees  clearly  that,  with  the 
treatment  he  has  suffered,  he  could  not  but  be- 
come what  he  is.  Shakespeare  has  rejected  the 
notion  of  the  atheistically-minded  Marlowe  that 
the  Jew  hates  Christianity  and  despises  Chris- 
tians as  fiercer  money-grabbers  than  himself. 
With  his  calm  humanity,  Shakespeare  makes 
Shylock's  hardness  and  cruelty  result  at  once 
from  his  passionate  nature  and  his  abnormal 
position;  so  that,  in  spite  of  everything  he  has 
come  to  appear  in  the  eyes  of  later  times  as  a 
sort  of  tragic  symbol  of  the  degradation  and 
vengefulness  of  an  oppressed  race.  There  is  not 

42 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

in  all  Shakespeare  a  greater  example  of  trenchant 
and  incontrovertible  eloquence  than  Shake- 
speare's famous  speech  (iii.  I)  :  'I  am  a  Jew. 
Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes?  Hath  not  a  Jew  hands, 
organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections,  pas- 
sions?' etc." 

No  contrast  would  seem  greater  than  the  per- 
sonality of  Shylock  as  compared  with  the  char- 
acter of  Hamlet.  Georg  Brandes  declares  that 
the  mentality  of  the  Melancholy  Dane  visualizes 
the  mind  of  Shakespeare  at  the  time  he  wrote 
the  drama,  for  here  the  poet  "puts  the  cloak  of 
motley  on  his  own  shoulders.  He  well  under- 
stood the  value  of  indirect  expression,  and  the 
fact  that  wisdom  cuts  deeper  when  thrown  out 
as  folly." 

On  his  first  and  only  visit  to  the  United  States, 
in  the  spring  of  1914,  Georg  Brandes,  in  lectur- 
ing before  special  audiences,  featured  Hamlet  as 
the  one  of  Shakespeare's  characters  most  fa- 
miliar to  Americans.  There  was,  of  course,  the 
double  interest  that  here  was  one  famous  Dane 
interpreting  another  Dane  whose  fame  was 
world-wide,  even  though  Shakespeare  drew 
largely  on  his  imagination  in  his  creation  of 
Hamlet. 

"Shakespeare  lived  all  of   Hamlet's   experi- 

43 


GEORG    BRANDES 

ences,"  declared  Brandes.  "Shortly  before  writ- 
ing the  drama  his  father  had  died — not  by  assas- 
sination, it  is  true;  and  his  mother  had  not  de- 
graded herself — but  the  patrons  of  his  youth, 
Southampton  and  Essex,  had  died;  the  woman 
he  loved  had  proved  false  and  heartless,  a  friend 
had  conspired  against  him  with  this  woman,  and 
his  prospects  of  winning  the  poet's  wreath  were 
slim.  At  first  he  was  submissive  under  these 
misfortunes.  He  was  stunned.  Later  he  took 
his  revenge  incognito  through  the  scathing  in- 
vective of  Hamlet.  He  makes  Hamlet  speak  not 
as  a  prince  but,  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  'op- 
pressor's scorn'  and  the  'proud  man's  contumely/ 
in  the  manner  of  one  who  has  been  outraged  by 
the  sight  of  stupidity  lording  it  in  high  places. 
The  bright  view  of  life  which  characterized  his 
youth  was  overcast,  and  his  disappointment 
voices  itself  in  Hamlet's  expression  of  weariness 
of  life." 


44 


CHAPTER  V 


AS  Shakespeare  gave  expression  to  much 
within  his  own  self  through  the  portrayal  of 
Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmark,  so  Brandes  reveals 
not  a  little  of  his  individuality  by  his  analysis  of 
Hamlet's  idiosyncracies.  It  is  true  that  we  must 
go  to  the  last  of  his  great  works,  "Michelangelo 
Buonarroti,"  for  an  estimate  as  to  how  much 
Brandes  put  of  himself  in  any  of  his  books.  That 
he  has  much  in  common  with  Hamlet  in  his  way 
of  looking  at  mankind,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
How  often  in  the  past,  as  he  broke  lance  after 
lance  with  conservatism,  has  he  not  shown  his 
detestation  for  "the  stupidity  lording  it  in  high 
places."  Through  all  his  writings  occurs  this 
word  "stupidity"  as  a  reproach  because  of  man- 
kind's refusal  to  think  for  itself  and  use  common 
sense. 

His  literary  career  extending  over  more  than 
sixty  years,  Georg  Brandes  has  at  times  been 

45 


GEORG    BRANDES 

exposed  to  much  adverse  criticism  because  of  his 
facility  for  producing  the  one  large  work  after 
another.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  expect 
that  all  that  he  has  written  is  of  equal  merit.  At 
the  same  time,  few  writers  of  to-day  equal  him 
on  the  score  of  uniform  perfection  when  taken 
in  connection  with  such  vast  production.  But  it 
would  be  nothing  less  than  a  miracle  if  here  and 
there  slight  inaccuracies  did  not  slip  in.  And 
as  Brandes  himself  does  not  believe  in  miracles, 
he  is  the  first  to  admit  that  discrepancies  are  part 
of  human  nature.  The  Brandes  way  of  writing 
history  is  such  that  license  is  required  in  describ- 
ing events  of  the  past.  But  there  can  be  no  quar- 
rel with  such  literature  as  makes  the  great  his- 
toric characters  rise  from  the  tomb,  endowed 
with  those  very  faculties  that  made  them  con- 
spicuous while  among  the  living. 

Halting  between  Brandes'  "Shakespeare"  and 
the  appearance  of  his  "Wolfgang  Goethe,"  in 
1915,  the  intervening  years  give  opportunity  for 
considering  the  vast  number  of  works  before  the 
subsequent  Voltaire,  Julius  Caesar  and  Michel- 
angelo. However  casual  an  estimate  of  Georg 
Brandes'  achievements,  some  mention  must  be 
made  of  books  each  and  every  one  of  which  con- 
stitute steps  in  his  career.  Only  in  that  way  can 

46 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

his  versatility  be  brought  home  to  those  seeking 
light  on  the  importance  of  this  Danish  critic. 

Among  the  earlier  monographs  dealing  with 
Scandinavian  authors,  Georg  Brandes'  estimate 
of  Henrik  Ibsen  and  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson  long 
since  established  their  right  to  unique  distinction. 
Brandes,  as  a  matter  of  record,  was  largely  re- 
sponsible for  the  fact  that  Ibsen  took  a  firm 
stand  for  those  ideals  that  showed  him  as  the 
master  craftsman  in  dramatic  art.  As  for 
Bjornson,  in  spite  of  certain  differences  in  tem- 
perament and  artistic  perception,  the  friendship 
that  existed  between  the  Norwegian  writer  and 
the  Danish  critic  continued  through  the  lifetime 
of  the  former  to  the  mutual  benefit  of  both.  It 
is,  further,  a  well  known  fact  that  August 
Strindberg  would  not  so  soon  have  gained  his 
literary  reputation  had  not  Brandes  singled  out 
this  Swedish  genius  for  what  he  was,  and  voiced 
his  appreciation  of  his  unquestioned  talent. 

As  for  the  influence  of  Georg  Brandes  on 
Scandinavian  literature  as  a  whole,  we  shall  have 
to  come  to  that  later.  For  the  present,  however, 
it  may  have  its  particular  purpose  to  say  that 
with  regard  to  Hans  Christian  Andersen  no 
native  Dane  nor  foreigner  has  ever  written 
more  entertainingly  about  the  Danish  fairy-tale 

47 


GEORG    BRANDES 

writer.  Here  is  the  way  Brandes  sums  up  Hans 
Andersen:  "One  of  the  marks  of  writers  of 
genius  is  almost  always  the  necessity  for  con- 
stantly creating,  and  we  are  surprised  not  only 
to  see  how  excellent  has  been  their  production 
in  its  best  manifestations,  but  also  to  note  its 
continuance  and  abundance.  All  the  great 
creators  who  have  not  been  prevented  by  illness 
or  arrested  by  premature  death  have  left  quan- 
tities of  work. 

"In  the  'Ugly  Duckling/  one  of  his  most  ex- 
quisite stories,  there  is  the  quintessence  of  An- 
dersen's entire  life-melancholy,  humour,  martyr- 
dom, triumph — and  of  his  whole  nature ;  the  gift 
of  observation  and  the  sparkling  intellect  which 
he  used  to  avenge  himself  upon  folly  and  wick- 
edness, the  varied  faculties  which  constituted  his 
genius.  This  genius  formed  his  happiness, 
which  was  deep  and  essential,  in  ways  different 
from  external  triumphs." 

Brandes,  then,  once  more  referring  to  an  au- 
thor's productivity,  adds  that  "for  posterity  the 
point  in  question  is  by  no  means  to  have  written 
much,  even  though  all  might  be  excellent.  It  is 
impossible  with  such  an  amount  of  luggage  to 
pass  through  the  needle's  eye  that  leads  into  the 
realm  of  immortality.  The  essential  thing  is  to 

48 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

have  produced  one  single  little  work  which  is 
immortal,  a  thing  that  is  never  forgotten  because 
its  form  is  so  faultless  and  so  final  that  nothing 
can  impair  it.  'Don  Quixote,'  'Robinson  Crusoe/ 
'Manon  Lescaut,'  in  universal  literature  are  mas- 
terpieces of  this  sort.  Their  authors  have  writ- 
ten a  series  of  other  books  which  are  known  only 
in  their  native  countries  and  by  very  few 
persons.  A  collection  of  the  best  'Tales'  of 
Andersen  is  worthy  to  rank  among  the  number 
of  the  few  unique  books  which  mankind  will 
never  forget." 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  simplicity  and  poetic 
inspiration  of  a  Hans  Christian  Andersen  to  the 
Friedrich  Nietzsche  whose  philosophy  became  a 
bone  of  contention  for  scholars  everywhere  after 
Georg  Brandes  presented  him  to  the  world  as  a 
genius  of  a  sort  whose  doctrines  should  not  be 
passed  by  without  serious  study.  Brandes'  mono- 
graph on  Nietzsche,  however,  does  not  show  the 
Danish  critic  a  disciple  of  this  German  mystery- 
man.  In  answer  to  those  who  at  one  time  charged 
him  with  taking  example  from  Nietzsche's  teach- 
ings he  said  that  when  he  became  acquainted 
with  Nietzsche  he  was  long  past  the  age  at  which 
it  is  possible  to  change  one's  fundamental  view 
of  life. 

49 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"I  maintained  many  years  ago,"  writes 
Brandes,  "that  my  first  thought  with  regard  to 
a  philosophical  book  was  by  no  means  to  ask 
whether  what  it  contains  is  right  or  wrong  but 
to  go  straight  through  the  book  to  the  man  be- 
hind it.  And  my  first  question  is  this:  What 
is  the  value  of  this  man,  is  he  interesting  or  not  ? 
If  he  is,  then  his  books  are  undoubtedly  worth 
knowing.'* 

In  August,  1900,  after  the  death  of  Nietzsche, 
Brandes  wrote  about  him:  "To  be  able  to  ex- 
plain Nietzsche's  rapid  and  overwhelming  tri- 
umph, one  would  want  the  key  to  the  secret  of 
the  psychological  life  of  our  time.  He  bewitched 
the  age,  though  he  seems  opposed  to  all  its  in- 
stincts. The  age  is  ultra-democratic ;  he  won  its 
favors  as  an  aristocrat.  The  age  is  borne  on  a 
rising  wave  of  religious  reaction;  he  conquered 
with  his  pronounced  irreligion.  The  age  is  strug- 
gling with  social  questions  of  the  most  difficult 
and  far-reaching  kind ;  he,  the  thinker  of  the  age, 
left  all  these  questions  on  one  side  as  of  sec- 
ondary importance.  He  was  an  enemy  of  the 
humanitarianism  of  the  present  day  and  its  doc- 
trine of  happiness.  .  .  .  For  all  that,  he 
must  in  some  hidden  way  have  been  in  accord 
with  much  that  is  fermenting  in  our  time, 

so 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

otherwise  it  would  not  have  adopted  him  as  it 
has  done." 

Apart  from  the  great  men  who  centered  en- 
tire epochs,  as  in  the  case  of  Goethe,  Voltaire, 
Caesar,  Michelangelo,  and  who  he  treated  sep- 
arately in  those  monumental  works  that  now 
stand  to  his  credit,  Georg  Brandes'  portrait  gal- 
lery includes  many  other  important  personalities 
whose  monographs  are  conspicuous  examples  of 
his  literary  craftsmanship.  Anatole  France, 
Disraeli,  Napoleon,  Lassalle,  Heine,  to  mention 
only  a  few  of  the  intimate  sketches  by  his  hand, 
in  each  and  every  instance  the  execution  carries 
that  sure  touch  that  only  an  artist  has  at 
his  command.  His  "Autobiography"  reveals 
Brandes  as  man  and  litterateur  and  constitutes  a 
most  illuminating  chapter  in  his  history.  His 
writings  on  the  world  war;  on  Russia  and  Po- 
land, both  as  to  their  cultural  status  and  their 
relations  to  the  Jews,  the  Schleswig-Holstein 
question,  and  Brandes'  neutral  attitude  during 
the  conflict,  all  this  bears  directly  on  his  achieve- 
ment and  aim  in  life. 


51 


CHAPTER  VI 

BRANDES'  SEARCHING  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  FAUST  IN 
"WOLFGANG  GOETHE" 

WHILE  Brandes'  "Wolfgang  Goethe"  did 
not  make  its  appearance  until  1915,  many 
years  before  he  had  written  extensively  on  the 
subject  of  the  German  poet  who  so  greatly  influ- 
enced his  whole  literary  activity.  The  character 
of  Faust,  in  particular,  proved  fascinating  mate- 
rial and  an  inspiration. 

"With  Faust,  dating  from  1775,"  he  writes, 
"Goethe  reached  an  altitude  as  poet  which  in- 
scribes his  name  alongside  the  greatest  men  on 
the  globe.  These  pages  contain  a  luxurious  mass 
of  feeling,  wit,  fantasy  and  common  sense ;  such 
abounding  melody  and  so  superior  an  art  in  the 
sketching  of  three  very  human  and  symbolical 
figures  that  all  criticism  of  lesser  things  dis- 
solves itself  into  devotion-like  admiration.  This 
is  written  for  all  time.  So  long  as  the  German 
language  is  understood  it  cannot  be  forgotten." 
How  Goethe  was  led  by  gradual  stages  to  the 

52 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

writing  of  Faust;  how  during  an  entire  decade, 
and  that  ten  of  his  best  years — from  his  twenty- 
seventh  to  his  thirty-seventh — he  gave  up  his 
poetical  activity  to  devote  himself  to  managerial 
court  service  in  Weimer,  how  Goethe's  marvel- 
ous productivity  was  marked  by  lapses  that 
stood  in  striking  contract  to  what  he  accom- 
plished, this  and  much  more  Brandes  subjects  to 
his  penetrative  analysis.  At  Weimar,  Goethe 
wrote  little  more  than  topical  verses,  and  for 
this  reason,  affirms  Brandes,  "his  more  impor- 
tant work  lacked  unity.  He  left  them  lying  about 
too  long.  As  a  rule  they  are  too  heterogenous 
or  poorly  constructed.  He  constantly  reverted 
to  them,  or  added  new  material,  or  else  he  con- 
tinued their  completion  when  he  had  half  for- 
gotten the  original  idea  with  regard  to  the  work. 
"Without  counting  the  unconnected  scenes, 
'Gotz  von  Berlichingen'  exists  in  three  different 
forms.  'Iphigenia'  was  reworked  five  times. 
Wilhelm  Meister's  'Apprenticeship'  was  left  idle 
so  long  that  the  work  was  built  upon  another 
plan  than  the  one  on  which  it  was  conceived.  We 
have  it  in  two  forms.  Wilhelm  Meister's  'Wan- 
derings' was  in  no  wise  carried  out  according 
to  any  plan ;  it  is  merely  a  collection.  And  when 
we  finally  arrive  at  such  a  main  work  as  'Faust/ 

53 


GEORG    BRANDES 

which  was  drafted  and  laid  aside,  and  taken  up 
again  and  again,  until  its  completion  stretches 
across  more  than  sixty  years,  then  it  is  difficult 
to  say  how  many  'Fausts*  are  contained;  one 
'Faust*  it  is  not.  The  whole  is  made  up  of  a 
series  of  geological  stratums,  and  these  layers 
sometimes  lie,  as  when  rock  formations  tumble 
together,  intermixed  with  each  other." 

Touching  the  genesis  of  "Faust,"  Brandes 
then  says :  "The  young  Wolfgang  Goethe  wrote 
out  a  dramatic  fragment,  the  idea  for  which  ap- 
pears to  have  come  to  him  at  the  close  of  1773, 
and  which  he  elaborated  between  October,  1774, 
and  the  beginning  of  1775,  so  far  as  it  concerned 
the  larger  part,  and  during  the  late  summer  and 
the  fall  of  1775  as  it  pertained  to  the  lesser  half. 
He  then  left  the  writing  as  it  was  until,  in  1788, 
during  his  second  stay  in  Rome,  he  once  more 
took  hold  and  tried  to  possess  himself  of  the 
spirit  and  atmosphere  that  surrounded  the  mate- 
rial in  his  younger  days.  He  first  published  it 
in  1790  as  a  'Fragment.'  " 

With  all  this,  the  Danish  critic  declares  that 
what  Goethe  prepared  in  the  fall  of  1775  was, 
however  careless  its  treatment,  the  finest  poetry 
written  during  the  past  180  years,  a  poetry  that 
Goethe  himself  never  surpassed.  And  the  rea- 

54 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

son  why  these  pages  are  "like  asbestos,  to  be 
destroyed  neither  by  fire,  nor  water,  nor  time," 
avers  Brandes,  is  that  in  "Faust"  Goethe  attains 
to  and  penetrates  the  purely  elementary  in  hu- 
man nature. 

On  this  point  we  read:  "He  here  defines  love 
and  sentiment  as  those  qualities  first  reveal  them- 
selves in  the  life  of  a  young  woman,  inseparable 
as  they  are  in  the  eternal  simplicity,  yet  immov- 
able and  strong  as  granite  rock.  The  contrasting 
figure  is  man,  the  investigator;  one  who  thirsts 
after  all-encompassing  knowledge ;  who  wants  to 
learn  the  origin  of  existence,  the  power  of  na- 
ture, the  whole  of  life's  rich  and  secret  contents. 
Goethe  brings  before  this  mortal  a  young  woman 
who  attracts  and  fascinates  and  yet  fails  to  bind 
and  hold  him  prisoner." 

It  was  while  in  Leipzig,  as  a  young  student, 
that  Goethe  became  acquainted  with  Auerbach's 
paintings  which  tell  about  the  journeys  and  ad- 
ventures of  Faust  and  Mephistopheles.  In 
Frankfort,  where  he  hesitated  between  the  pious 
teachings  of  Frau  von  Kettenberg  and  the  in- 
credulity of  the  period  due  to  the  influence  of 
Voltaire,  Goethe  had  busied  himself  with  alchemy 
and  cabalistics.  He  had  even  tried  his  hand  at 
being  a  magician.  But  it  was  his  stay  in  Strass- 

55 


GEORG    BRANDES 

burg  that  proved  decisive  in  that  the  suffering 
Herder  supplied  him  with  the  outline  of  Faust. 
The  constant  satire  and  sarcasm  as  employed  by 
Herder  furnished  Goethe  the  clue  to  his  Mephis- 
topheles,  the  sketching  being  made  more  complete 
later  under  the  influence  of  Merck.  The  Gretchen 
ideal  Goethe  obtained  from  Friederike,  but 
Gretchen's  name  was  a  transplantation,  referring 
to  the  young  girl  with  whom  the  fifteen-year-old 
boy  had  been  in  love. 

Georg  Brandes  is  of  the  opinion  that  Goethe 
should  stand  before  Europe  and  America  as  not 
only  the  most  profound  and  the  most  comprehen- 
sive poetic  power,  but  upon  the  whole  as  the 
richest  equipped  individual  appearing  in  litera- 
ture since  the  days  of  the  Renaissance.  And  yet 
for  many  years  "Faust"  was  looked  upon  askance. 
Both  Benjamin  Constant  and  Madame  de  Stael 
criticised  the  work  adversely.  "But,"  comments 
Brandes,  "among  the  numerous  Frenchmen  who 
after  Goethe's  death  felt  themselves  under  the 
spell  of  his  mental  greatness  and  lifted  up  by  his 
superiority  above  his  own  time,  it  suffices  to  name 
the  two  greatest:  Ernest  Renan,  who  is  related 
to  Goethe  by  virtue  of  his  own  agility  of  mind 
which  encompasses  history,  and  by  his  equally 
developed  taste  for  primitive  and  refined  sensi- 

56 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

bility;  and  next,  Hippolyte  Taine,  who  is  a  de- 
scendant of  Goethe  by  reason  of  his  rare  ability 
to  understand,  his  blending  of  spiritual  and  nat- 
ural knowledge,  his  deep  and  firmly  rooted  en- 
thusiasm for  art  in  nature." 

As  already  told,  the  influence  of  Goethe  on 
Georg  Brandes  is  of  long  standing,  and  many 
years  ago  he  began  to  write  interestingly  about 
the  great  German  poet-philosopher.  According 
to  his  own  words,  however,  it  remained  for  the 
world  war  to  afford  him  the  chance  to  prepare 
the  two-volume  work  which  he  completed  in  1915 
because,  as  he  said,  he  was  prevented  from 
spending  his  time  in  travel  and  settled  down  to  a 
task  that  found  him  fully  equipped  to  treat  of 
Goethe  in  a  manner  that  scholars  everywhere 
pronounce  fully  worthy  the  subject  and  the 
author. 

Georg  Brandes'  appreciation  of  Goethe  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows :  "He  was  the  greatest 
poetical  genius  of  the  last  three  centuries.  After 
a  considerable  period  of  misjudgment  and 
misunderstanding  he  has  become  the  national 
god  for  the  Germanic  race.  Not  even  Luther, 
Lessing  and  Schiller;  not  even  Mozart,  Beet- 
hoven, Wagner;  not  Kant  and  Schopenhauer, 
or  even  Frederick  the  Great  or  Bismarck  are 

57 


GEORG    BRANDES 

names  approaching  his.  In  one  personality  he 
is  to  Germany  what  Leonardo,  Michelangelo  and 
Galilei  are  to  Italy;  Moliere,  Racine,  Voltaire  to 
France;  Shakespeare,  Newton  and  Darwin  to 
England;  Linne,  Tegner  and  Berzelius  to 
Sweden.  He  is  the  encompassing  expression  for 
the  nation's  glory  and  its  highest  culture." 


58 


CHAPTER  VII 

FRANC.OIS  DE  VOLTAIRE  AND  THE  INFLUENCE  OF 
FRENCH  CULTURE 

SHORTLY  after  the  Goethe,  Georg  Brandes 
published  his  big  book  on  Voltaire.  Even  more 
so  than  Germany,  France  and  French  literature 
have  influenced  the  Danish  writer  from  his  earli- 
est youth.  On  the  occasion  of  the  half -century 
anniversary  of  his  first  book,  when  asked  why 
he  had  chosen  Voltaire  as  his  subject  for  ex- 
haustive analysis,  Brandes  replied:  "I  am  fond 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  has  tempted  me  to 
describe  Voltaire,  as  the  center  of  the  France  of 
his  time — through  a  mass  of  personalities  and 
works.  If  my  book  about  Goethe  contains  700 
characters,  twice  as  many  appear  here.  For  this 
reason  the  Voltaire  will  be  half  again  as  big  as 
the  Goethe  book. 

"But  Voltaire  is  not  only  the  central  point  in 
the  France  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Alone  his 
exile  across  the  Channel  gives  opportunity  for 
describing  England  of  that  period.  His  book 

59 


GEORG    BRANDES 

about  Charles  XII  is  Sweden  of  the  time;  a 
country  that  he  carefully  explored.  His  rela- 
tions with  Frederick  the  Great;  to  the  la  tier's 
sister,  the  Margravine  of  Beyruth,  and  a  large 
number  of  small  German  princes,  together  with 
his  long  stay  in  Prussia,  furnishes  a  chance  to 
discuss  the  Germany  of  those  days.  His  resi- 
dence at  the  court  of  King  Stanislaus  shows  the 
conditions  in  Lorraine,  and  as  Stanislaus  for- 
merly was  King  of  Poland,  Voltaire  is  also  fami- 
liar with  affairs  there.  His  work  about  Peter 
the  Great  and  his  friendship  for  Catherine  II 
gives  occasion  for  looking  into  contemporary 
Russia.  His  life,  then,  encompasses  much  of 
great  variety. 

"I  shall  attempt  to  show  him  that  justice  which 
the  first  half  of  the  dull  nineteenth  century  denied 
him,  without  by  any  means  forgetting  his  limita- 
tions. As  subject  matter  Voltaire  is  fresh;  out- 
side France  very  little  has  been  written  about 
him,  and  in  France,  nothing  that  is  very  good." 

If,  however,  Voltaire  attained  during  his  life- 
time a  much  greater  sway  than  Goethe  while  he 
lived,  the  reason,  avers  Brandes,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  not  only  was  the  French  satirist 
the  redoubtable  conqueror  of  superstition,  but 
he  wrote  in  a  language  that  was  highly  developed 

60 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

and  constituted  the  language  used  at  court 
everywhere. 

"It  was  the  language  of  diplomats,"  affirms 
Brandes,  "it  was  the  most  adaptable,  flexible  and 
elegant  of  all.  It  was  a  language  alike  adapted 
to  humor  and  pathos,  to  the  concealment  or  rev- 
elation of  thought.  He  developed  it  in  metrical 
style,  in  the  sort  of  poetry  of  which  he  was  com- 
plete master — the  epigram — and  made  it  the 
organ  for  the  finest  wit  and  the  keenest  sense 
known  to  reasoning  man.  And  in  his  prose  Vol- 
taire brought  French  up  to  a  matchless  height 
of  boldness  and  firmness,  strength  and  subtlety." 

But  poet,  in  the  sense  that  Goethe  was  a  poet, 
Voltaire  never  succeeded  in  becoming,  Brandes 
declares.  He  was  a  dramatist  who,  like  Euri- 
pides of  old,  made  the  tragedy  the  organ  for  new 
ideas.  He  was  a  pamphleteer  who  could  arouse 
a  whirlwind  of  laughter  and  was  therefore  to  be 
feared.  He  was  the  author  of  short  philosophic 
novels  that  penetrated  everywhere  and  won  the 
minds  of  men  through  an  appeal  to  reason.  And 
he  was,  what  Goethe  never  could  be,  emphasizes 
Brandes,  a  fighter.  He  was  the  champion  of 
tolerance,  the  lover  of  freedom,  the  spokesman 
of  justice.  He  made  the  mighty  tremble  through 
the  power  of  his  pen. 

61 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"We  are  forced  to  concede  one  small  personal 
superiority  to  Voltaire,"  Brandes  continues  in 
making  his  comparison  with  Goethe;  "his  posi- 
tion in  and  atttitude  toward  the  society  of  roy- 
alty was  commendable.  From  his  very  youth  he 
had  been  wont  to  associate  with  lords  and  ladies 
of  high  degree.  Fully  aware  of  his  intellectual 
endowments  and  acquirements  he  considered 
himself  their  equal.  That  gave  his  position  a 
saving  grace.  He  moved  about  among  them  with 
complete  ease;  he  never  appeared  subservient 
other  than  in  a  purely  formal  way  demanded  by 
the  etiquette  of  the  age. 

"It  is  true  that  his  letters  to  kings,  empresses 
and  other  lofty  personages  rarely  fail  to  flatter. 
But  they  flattered  him  first.  And  his  flattery 
is  so  elegant  and  witty  that  to  read  it  is  a  dis- 
tinct pleasure.  Think  of  his  numerous  epistles  to 
Frederick  the  Great!  They  flatter,  but  back  of 
them  lie  self-assertion  and  criticism,  sharp 
caustic  and  corrective." 

Goethe,  on  the  other  hand,  we  read  further, 
"as  the  son  of  a  civilian  and  the  comrade  of  an 
unimportant  duke,  had  the  German  innate  re- 
spect for  the  social  hierarchy  developed  to  such 
a  high  degree  that  it  gave  him  unequivocal 

62 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

pleasure  to  envelop  himself  with  all  the  formulae 
of  subserviency  prescribed  by  the  court." 

Whether  or  not  Georg  Brandes  ever  contem- 
plated a  life  of  Napoleon  of  equal  proportion 
with  his  Shakespeare,  Goethe  or  Voltaire,  the 
fact  remains  that  in  his  monograph  on  the  Cor- 
sican  superman  he  compressed  within  a  small 
space  an  immense  amount  of  matter  that  gives 
a  most  interesting  insight  into  a  career  that  has, 
perhaps,  never  been  duplicated.  This  mono- 
graph was  also  written  during  the  war,  and  on 
the  occasion  of  the  Napoleonic  centenary.  Rela- 
tive to  the  man  whose  rule  was  short  but  who 
accomplished  so  much,  Brandes  writes:  "It  is 
exactly  one  hundred  years  since  the  close  of  the 
Napoleonic  era  with  the  campaign  in  France,  in 
1814,  and  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  1815.  Seldom 
has  so  short  a  span  been  so  eventful  and  unfor- 
gettable. .  . 

"As  late  as  the  beginning  of  October,  1812, 
Napoleon  stood  in  Moscow  as  the  decisive  master 
of  the  European  continent.  Personally  he  had 
as  yet  met  no  defeat.  He  was  forty-three  years 
old,  Emperor  of  France  and  King  of  Italy.  He 
had  married  the  daughter  of  an  emperor  and 
had  received  an  heir  to  the  throne.  His  dominion 
reached  from  the  coast  of  Holland  to  the  Ionian 

63 


GEORG    BRANDES 

islands ;  from  Danzig  to  the  southernmost  point 
of  Italy.  He  ruled  as  autocrat  over  hundreds  of 
millions  of  human  beings." 

Brandes  advances  the  hypothesis  that  if  Napo- 
leon's adventure  in  Russia  had  not  turned  out 
a  fiasco  the  Russian  people  themselves  would 
have  been  the  chief  beneficiaries.  For  then  the 
Russian  serf  would  have  been  made  free  half  a 
century  before  this  actually  happened.  Had 
Napoleon  been  able  to  obtain  a  real  foothold  in 
that  country,  the  Danish  critic  emphasizes,  the 
badly  governed  Russian  nation  would  have  been 
turned  into  paths  of  liberty  and  prosperity  like 
those  enjoyed  by  the  French.  "But  the  Russian 
breakdown  was  the  decisive  thrust  against  the 
power  of  Napoleon.  One  year  and  a  half  after 
his  stay  in  Moscow  his  domain  was  reduced  to 
the  Island  of  Elba.  A  year  later  he  was  once 
more  a  prisoner  on  St.  Helena.  The  structure 
of  his  might  fell  to  the  ground  like  a  house  of 
cards." 


64 


CHAPTER  VIII 

NEW  ESTIMATE  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR  AS  RULER  AND 
CITIZEN 

THERE  must  have  been  something  in  the 
very  atmosphere  of  1917  which  led  Georg 
Brandes  to  concentrate  on  the  career  of  Julius 
Caesar  and  bring  to  completion  a  work  that  in  an 
equal  degree  with  the  preceding  volumes  testified 
to  his  remarkable  capacity  for  summoning  from 
out  the  past  great  historical  characters  and  in- 
vesting them  with  the  spirit  of  the  present. 
Many  historians  have  concerned  themselves  with 
the  Roman  dictator  without  coming  to  an  agree- 
ment as  to  his  real  worth  to  his  generation  and 
after.  Brandes'  "Cajus  Julius  Caesar"  in  many 
respects  differs  from  what  other  noted  writers 
have  had  to  say  on  the  subject.  The  Danish  critic 
certainly  takes  exception  to  Shakespeare's  drama 
of  that  name  where  Brutus  is  exalted  and  the 
character  of  Caesar  made  merely  a  foil  to  the 
other's  outstanding  importance  in  the  play. 
Brandes'  Caesar  is  conspicuous  for  the  fact 

65 


GEORG    BRANDES 

that  it  throws  into  strong  relief  the  dominant 
characteristics  of  the  great  Roman  as  ruler  and 
citizen.  As  for  Shakespeare's  interpretation,  we 
read  that  it  was  because  of  his  lack  of  "historical 
and  classical  culture  that  the  incomparable  figure 
of  Caesar  left  him  unmoved.  He  depressed  and 
debased  that  figure  to  make  room  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  central  figure — Marcus  Brutus 
— who,  following  Plutarch's  idealizing  example, 
he  depicted  as  a  stoic  of  almost  flawless  nobility." 
In  "Cajus  Julius  Caesar,"  Brandes'  cosmopoli- 
tanism comes  into  full  flower.  He  reveals  his 
purpose  as  a  publicist  to  whom  literature  is  a 
means  for  reaching  the  ear  of  the  public.  Gen- 
eration upon  generation,  he  writes,  has  been  edu- 
cated to  see  in  Caesar  the  representative  of  lust 
of  power,  in  Brutus  the  hero  of  freedom.  It  may 
have  suited  the  purpose  of  Shakespeare  to  have 
Mark  Anthony  play  the  role  he  did.  But  with 
Froude,  Brandes  brushes  aside  whatever  good 
traits  Marcus  Brutus  may  have  possessed,  for 
he  lost  all  claims  to  consideration  after  he  de- 
livered the  fatal  thrust  which  robbed  the  world 
of  Caesar.  "That  murder,  committed  during  the 
forenoon  of  the  fifteenth  day  of  March,  44  B.  C, 
by  sixty  conspirators  making  twenty-three  dag- 
ger thrusts,  is  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous 

66 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

monument  that  history  possesses  relative  to 
human  stupidity  in  the  guise  of  so-called  ideal- 
ism; of  human  meanness,  ingratitude,  rapacity 
and  coarseness  masquerading  as  love  of  liberty. 
A  band  of  jealous  wretches,  lusting  after  power, 
lacerated  with  their  long  daggers  the  most  genial 
personality  of  Roman  antiquity.  And  it  is  the 
crowning  disgrace  that  during  the  following 
2,000  years,  because  of  mankind's  incomprehen- 
sible stupidity,  Brutus  is  placed  alongside  Caesar, 
yes,  is  esteemed  as  even  greater  and  worthier 
than  he." 

Brandes  then  speaks  of  the  many  great  things 
accomplished  by  Caesar.  To  begin  with,  he 
solved  a  problem  that  the  centuries  had  failed 
to  solve,  the  agrarian  problem,  the  greatest  ques- 
tion of  that  day,  as  it  still  remains  the  greatest 
issue  of  the  present.  Caesar  gave  relief  to  prov- 
inces staggering  under  the  burden  imposed  by 
Roman  money  men.  He  gave  independence  to 
entire  provinces  by  presenting  them  with  Latin 
citizenship,  sometimes  Roman.  He  decreased  the 
size  of  the  Roman  proletariat  and  fought  poverty 
by  creating  Roman  colonies  that  became  cradles 
for  intelligence  and  from  where  civilizing  influ- 
ences could  go  forth  among  the  barbarians  of 
the  period.  %. 

67 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"The  conquest  of  Gaul,  as  completed  by 
Caesar,"  we  read  further,  "is  a  masterpiece  in 
accomplishment  that  never  can  be  forgotten. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  Caesar  is  the 
creator  of  the  later-day  French  nation.  Without 
him  the  Gauls  would  perhaps  a  second  time  have 
thrown  themselves  over  Italy  and  destroyed  the 
high  civilization  of  the  antique  world.  Just  as 
Sertorious  in  his  own  time  romanized  Celt- 
Tiberian  Spain,  Caesar  laid  the  foundation  for 
making  Gaul  Roman.  Those  fear-inspiring  ene- 
mies of  the  Roman  empire,  who  three  centuries 
and  a  half  before  had  conquered  Rome  and 
humiliated  the  people,  of  their  own  free  will  now 
renounce  their  religion,  their  customs,  language, 
laws,  even  their  names,  in  order  to  take  on  lan- 
guage, names,  laws,  customs,  as  these  were  intro- 
duced by  Caesar.  The  influence  on  the  progress 
of  civilization  that  Caesar  thus  effected  is  be- 
yond estimate." 

Brandes  has  no  quarrel  with  those  who  cling 
to  Shakespeare's  interpretation  of  the  great  Ro- 
man on  the  score  of  the  poetic  beauty  of  the 
drama  or  mastery  in  delineation.  Himself  far 
from  being  a  historian  in  the  strictest  sense  of 
the  word,  yet  it  is  the  historic  viewpoint  that  he 
attacks.  In  fact,  Shakespeare,  according  to 

68 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

Georg  Brandes,  did  wonders  with  the  material 
available  to  him.  But  the  Danish  critic  set  out 
to  show  Julius  Caesar  in  what  he  considered  his 
true  colors.  Take  Caesar's  speech  in  the  Senate, 
when  the  conspiracy  of  Catiline  is  being  dis- 
cussed. How  proud  the  delivery,  exclaims 
Brandes.  How  gentle  the  point  of  view,  what 
wisdom!  How  contrasting  to  all  of  Cicero's, 
the  man  of  rhetoric  whose  harmonious  style  ex- 
pressed nothing  more  than  an  inner  void. 

In  his  book  on  Shakespeare,  to  digress  from 
the  main  work  on  Caesar,  Brandes  draws  this 
interesting  picture  in  contrast :  "As  Shakespeare 
conceives  the  situation,  the  Republic  which 
Caesar  overthrew  might  have  continued  but  for 
him  and  it  was  a  criminal  act  on  his  part  to 
destroy  it.  But  the  old  aristocratic  republic  had 
already  fallen  to  pieces  when  Caesar  welded  its 
fragments  into  a  new  monarchy.  Sheer  lawless- 
ness reigned  in  Rome.  The  populace  was  such 
as  even  the  rabble  of  our  own  time  can  give  no 
conception  of;  not  the  brainless  mob,  for  the 
most  part  tame,  only  now  and  then  running  wild 
through  mere  stupidity,  which  in  Shakespeare 
listens  to  the  orations  over  Caesar's  body  and 
tears  Cinna  to  pieces ;  but  a  populace  whose  innu- 
merable hordes  consisted  mainly  of  slaves,  to- 

69 


GEORG    BRANDES 

gether  with  the  thousands  of  foreigners  from 
all  the  three  continents:  Phrygians  from  Asia, 
Negroes  from  Africa,  Iberians  and  Celts  from 
Spain  and  France,  who  flocked  together  in  the 
capital  of  the  world." 

This  very  closely  resembles  what  Momsen 
wrote  in  1857:  "If  we  try  to  conceive  to  our- 
selves a  London  with  the  slave  population  of 
New  Orleans,  with  the  police  of  Constantinople, 
with  the  non-industrial  character  of  modern 
Rome,  and  agitated  after  the  fashion  of  the  Paris 
of  1848,  we  shall  acquire  an  approximate  idea  of 
the  republican  glory,  the  departure  of  which 
Cicero  and  his  associates  in  their  sulky  letters 
deplore." 


70 


CHAPTER   IX 

BRANDES   SELF-REVEALED   IN    MICHELANGELO 
BUONARROTI 

WHEN  a  noted  writer  attains  the  advanced 
age  of  eighty,  and  a  new  large  work  by 
him  makes  its  appearance,  it  is  but  natural  that 
the  question  arises :  In  what  way  does  such  a  con- 
tribution to  world-literature  compare  with  what 
already  stands  to  the  credit  of  such  a  writer? 

Georg  Brandes'  "Michelangelo  Buonarroti"  is 
the  most  recent  of  his  larger  works.  In  all  hu- 
man probability  it  will  have  no  successor  on  the 
score  of  equal  size  or  preparation.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  an  octogenarian  can  set  himself 
to  again  master  the  vast  amount  of  detail  work 
that  went  to  the  making  of  this  Michelangelo. 
When  to  this  is  added  that  this  study  of  the  great 
Florentine  sculptor-painter  afforded  the  Danish 
critic  an  opportunity  for  autobiographical  reflec- 
tion, as  he  pictured  the  career  of  one  of  the 
world's  most  famous  personalities,  it  is  with 
more  than  ordinary  interest  that  the  reader  ap- 
proaches these  monumental  volumes. 
i  71 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Characteristic  of  the  style  employed  by 
Brandes  in  this  work  is  the  following:  "When 
to-day  one  visits  Florence  for  the  first  time,  it  is 
customary,  in  order  to  obtain  a  good  view  of  the 
city,  to  take  a  drive  along  the  Via  dei  Colli,  the 
road  which  twists  in  and  out  like  some  broad 
winding  stairway,  up  the  hills  where  Michelan- 
gelo built  fortifications  for  the  defense  of  Flor- 
ence. If  the  month  is  May,  the  tour  is  through 
a  veritable  flower  garden  (which  gives  Florence 
its  name)  through  an  atmosphere  fragrant  with 
the  scent  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  full- 
blown roses;  and  at  each  turn  of  the  road  the 
vista  reveals  more  of  the  fine  and  rarified  land- 
scape through  which  winds  the  Arno  River,  and 
in  which,  like  some  mosaic  flower  in  the  bottom  of 
a  bowl,  Florence  appears,  with  its  cathedral,  with 
Giotto's  bell-tower  in  black  and  white  marble, 
with  its  palaces,  equally  suited  for  defense  and 
festival,  and  with  its  wonderfully  decorated 
churches  and  cloisters." 

On  this  hill,  a  great  monument  in  honor  of  the 
four  hundredth  anniversary  of  Michelangelo's 
birth  was  unveiled  in  1875.  Here  Michelangelo's 
David  in  bronze  rests  high  upon  its  marble  base, 
and  from  it  extend  reclining  bronze  figures,  re- 

72 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

plicas  of  the  Morning,  Day,  Evening  and  Night 
in  the  Sacristy  of  San  Lorenzo. 

No  less  picturesque  is  Brandes'  reference  to 
the  eternal  city,  for  the  traveler  who  visits  Rome 
after  Florence  will  see  "far  in  the  distance,  hover- 
ing above  the  world-city,  the  dome  of  San  Pietro, 
the  most  beautiful  on  earth — far  more  beautiful 
than  either  of  its  forerunners,  the  domes  of  the 
Pantheon  and  of  Santa  Maria  del  Fiore.  Michel- 
angelo was  past  eighty  when  he  designed  this  and 
superintended  the  making  of  a  wooden  model. 
Though  he  never  saw  the  execution  of  his  plan, 
the  majestic  curved  line  of  the  world's  largest 
and  highest  dome  is  due  entirely  to  the  master 
himself.  Guided  solely  by  unerring  instinct — as 
it  were,  unconsciously — Michelangelo  here  solved 
a  problem  that  his  conscious  mind  could  scarcely 
have  comprehended ;  for  it  was  beyond  the  mathe- 
matics of  that  time.  We  must  explain  the  secret 
of  this  structure's  unique  effect  by  the  complete 
unity  of  its  plastic  and  mechanical  beauty." 

At  a  first  glance,  then,  it  is  seen  that  in  Flor- 
ence it  is  Michelangelo  the  sculptor  and  that  in 
Rome  it  is  Michelangelo  the  architect.  "But," 
continues  Brandes,  "when  we  are  in  Rome  itself 
we  find  that  it  is  as  painter  that  the  master 
proves  his  superiority.  In  a  single  building,  the 

73 


GEOR.G    BRANDES 

Sistine  Chapel,  he  carries  out  the  most  impor- 
tant and  all-encompassing  task  of  his  life,  the 
decoration  of  the  ceiling,  a  welling  forth  of  the 
youthful  yet  virile  quality  characteristic  of 
all  his  work ;  and  a  generation  later,  his  painting 
of  the  Last  Judgment,  witnessing  to  artistic  per- 
fection beyond  comparison.  We  know  at  a  first 
glance  that  this  artist's  crowning  aim  is  the 
sublime;  he  seeks  to  conquer  by  grandeur,  not 
by  emotion. 

"There  is  in  antique  art  a  unity  that  excluded 
the  individual.  The  Greek  artist  aimed  in  his 
work  to  forget  personality.  When  we  admire 
the  beauty  of  the  Parthenon  frieze,  we  do  not 
think  of  Phidias.  The  work  speaks  and  the 
artist  is  silent. 

"The  art  of  the  Renaissance,  and  especially 
that  of  Michelangelo,  is  different.  His  personal 
idiosyncracies  reveal  themselves  throughout  all 
his  works;  the  pride  of  his  soul,  the  untamed 
independence  of  his  mind.  He  is  more  personal, 
not  only  than  any  artist  of  Greek  antiquity,  but 
than  any  other  of  the  Italian  Renaissance." 

On  what  must  have  been  one  of  his  earliest 
visits  to  Italy,  Georg  Brandes  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  wonderful  productions  of 
Michelangelo,  for  in  his  book  he  has  this  striking 

74 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

sentence:  "In  1871,  when  for  the  first  time  I 
stepped  within  the  Sistine  Chapel,  I  said  to  my- 
self: 'At  last  you  are  in  the  presence  of  that 
mind  which  of  all  mind-forces  has  struck  deepest 
into  your  soul/ ' 

This  explains  only  partly  why  Brandes  has 
been  able  to  present  a  picture  of  Michelangelo 
which  involuntarily  calls  to  mind  the  struggles 
for  recognition  that  marked  the  earlier  efforts 
of  the  noted  Dane.  It  is  for  the  reason  that  he 
himself  underwent  similar  experiences,  with 
envy  and  ignorance  combining  in  an  attempt  to 
frustrate  his  purpose  in  life,  that  Brandes  re- 
veals his  kinship  to  the  Florentine  master  crafts- 
man. Directly  we  shall  hear  more  about  this 
battle  against  traditional  stupidity  which,  from 
youth  to  old  age,  Michelangelo's  biographer  had 
to  fight  that  men  might  come  to  realize  that 
their  selfhood  rests  on  seeking  the  light  that 
alone  redeems. 

Romain  Rolland  writes  of  Michelangelo  that 
he  was  "irresolute  in  art,  in  politics,  in  all  his 
actions  and  in  all  his  thoughts."  Admitting 
something  of  this,  Brandes  strikes  a  much  more 
positive  note  when  he  declares  that  Michelangelo, 
in  spite  of  his  mental  struggles,  aloofness  and 
idiosyncracies,  was  pursuing  one  end,  and  then, 

75 


GEORG    BRANDES 

following  up  this  assertion,  he  writes:  "A  life- 
work  like  his  is  unexplainable  without  his  inter- 
minable and  composite  character  as  man,  with 
its  ability  and  weakness,  and  without  the  entire 
artistic  and  literary  development  of  Italy  in  his 
time,  without  the  history  and  art  of  Tuscany, 
without  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  without  Bertoldo 
and  the  garden  of  San  Marco. 

"That  which  is  fundamental  in  Michelangelo's 
art,  then,  is  to  be  seen,  first,  in  the  relation  which 
he  bears  to  antiquity,  that  is,  to  the  sculpture  of 
the  Romans  and  the  imaginative  world  of  the 
Greeks;  and  secondly,  in  the  attitude  which  he 
himself  assumed  toward  the  Bible,  especially  the 
Old  Testament,  which  seems  completely  to  have 
filled  his  mind.  Here,  then,  we  find  two  influ- 
ences which  are  fundamental — Hellas  and  Pales- 
tine. Hellas  affects  him  because  of  the  relics 
of  antiquity  which  the  soil  of  Italy  has  given 
forth — excavated  works  like  the  Discobolos,  the 
torso  of  Hercules,  the  Laocoon,  and  innumerable 
carved  stones.  He  is  influenced  by  Palestine 
through  the  myths  of  creation,  the  prophets, 
Moses,  the  legend  about  the  Flood,  and  finally 
through  the  stories  about  the  Mother  of  Jesus 
and  her  Son,  and  the  latter's  sufferings  and 
death." 

76 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

Brandes  asserts  that  three  characteristics 
usually  strike  the  modern  beholder  who,  without 
preconceptions,  finds  himself  before  the  art  of 
Michelangelo.  First,  the  manner  in  which  nudity 
is  presented,  how  the  entire  naked  body  is  made 
to  express  individuality ;  secondly,  Michelangelo's 
striving  for  the  vast,  taking  that  word  in  its 
double  meaning  of  sublime  and  colossal;  finally, 
the  pathos  in  his  art,  with  its  overflowing  energy 
and  silent  dignity. 

"In  all  that  he  produced,"  Brandes  comments, 
"he  added  the  stamp  of  his  own  unquestioned 
superiority.  The  least  of  his  sketches  carry  au- 
thority; subjectively  free,  lending  to  the  plastic 
object  his  own  mental  strength,  or  fearlessness, 
or  dignified  elegance.  The  determining  consid- 
eration with  him  was  the  inner  pride  of  his  soul. 
But  though  a  votary  of  nature,  he  was  any- 
thing but  a  realist,  anything  but  an  imitator  of 
the  existing,  like  the  Florentines  before  him." 

Relative  to  the  religious  elements  that  entered 
into  Michelangelo's  creations,  it  is  the  opinion  of 
Brandes  that  he  is  at  his  best  at  the  cross-road 
where  Hellas  meets  in  his  consciousness  with 
Palestine.  That  he  was  stubborn  to  a  fault  when 
decorating  the  ceiling  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  is 
historically  proved  when  considering  his  answer 

77 


GEORG    BRANDES 

to  Pope  Julius  II,  who  desired  the  figures  of 
the  twelve  Apostles  made  part  of  that  work. 
Michelangelo  practically  eliminated  the  Christian 
element.  On  the  other  hand,  his  friendship  for 
Vittoria  Colonna  provided  a  channel  for  the  re- 
ligious action  that  allowed  the  Renaissance  to 
reach  and  partly  possess  him.  With  his  penchant 
for  exaltation,  he  became  receptive  to  an  influ- 
ence that  would  have  had  no  effect  on  Leonardo 
da  Vinci;  a  contagion  against  which  this  great 
artist  would  have  been  immune. 

Georg  Brandes  voices  his  pleasure  that  in  spite 
of  his  friendship  with  Vittoria  Collona,  regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  Michelangelo  fell  under  the 
spell  of  the  penitent  religiosity  of  the  time,  he 
continued  naively  to  place  groups  of  nude  bodies 
in  his  painting  of  the  Last  Judgment,  to  the 
indignation  of  cardinals  and  papal  officials,  who 
insisted  on  clothing  them.  Michelangelo  did  not 
allow  his  spiritual  rebirth  to  interfere  with  his 
artistic  conception  where  it  concerned  his  rev- 
erence for  the  human  form. 


78 


CHAPTER  X 

FLORENTINE     MASTER-CRAFTSMAN     AS     SEEN     BY 
DANISH     CRITIC 

A3  is  well  known,  two  important  presentments 
of  Michelangelo  are  those  by  Vasari  and 
Condivi,  the  latter  being  directly  inspired  by  the 
ageing  artist,  with  his  odd,  gruff  mannerisms, 
who  was  jealous  of  his  unconditioned  originality 
and  did  not  want  to  seem  to  owe  anything  to  any 
teacher.  At  thirteen,  Michelangelo  had  been 
taken  by  his  father,  who  held  out  as  long  as  he 
could  against  the  son's  desire  to  enter  upon  an 
artist's  career,  to  Domenico  Ghirlandajo,  the  best 
teacher  of  the  art  of  painting  that  Florence 
possessed. 

"About  this  time,"  writes  Brandes,  "Ghirlan- 
dajo was  engaged  on  the  frescoes  in  the  choir  of 
Santa  Maria  Novella,  and  made  use  of  a  num- 
ber of  his  students  as  his  assistants.  Here,  ap- 
parently, Michelangelo  learned  the  main  prin- 
ciples in  fresco  painting,  so  that  when  Julius  II 
set  him  his  great  task,  he  could  show  such  sur- 
prising skill. 

79 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"Since  as  an  old  man  he  bemoaned  the  fact 
that  he  had  not  at  once  been  apprenticed  to  a 
sculptor,  we  have  a  right  to  believe  that  his  place 
as  a  student  of  Ghirlandajo  was  not  something 
to  be  readily  given  up.  However  stubbornly  he 
may  have  maintained  that  sculpture  was  merely 
his  avocation,  it  was  not  of  his  own  volition  that 
he  left  the  painter's  studio.  The  reason  was  that 
Lorenzo  de  Medici  addressed  himself  to  Ghirlan- 
dajo for  the  purpose  of  getting  some  students 
for  a  school  of  sculpture  which  he  desired  to 
establish  in  the  garden  of  San  Marco's  cloister. 
Ghirlandajo  chose  Michelangelo  and  his  friend 
Granacci." 

After  Michelangelo,  we  read,  had  set  eyes 
upon  the  collection  of  sculpture  belonging  to  the 
Medici  he  never  returned  to  the  painter's  studio. 
The  antique  statues  altogether  enthralled  him. 
As  he  wandered  there  in  the  shaded  walks  of 
San  Marco,  the  boy  had  before  him  the  master- 
pieces of  the  ancients,  and  he  must  have  felt 
within  him  a  strong  desire  to  deal  with  marble. 
The  stonecutters  who  were  building  walls  and 
cutting  ornaments  for  the  newly  established 
library  helped  him  in  his  study  by  supplying  him 
with  a  piece  of  marble  and  some  tools  with  which 

80 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

he  made  his  earliest  attempt  at  sculpture,  the 
head  of  a  faun. 

"But  it  was  Lorenzo  himself  who  showed  and 
explained  to  the  boy  his  art  treasures,  his  gems 
and  coins,"  Brandes  continues.  "The  youth  be- 
came familiar  with  what  the  Florentine  painters 
before  him  had  achieved.  The  naive  style  that 
is  now  called  Pre-Raphaelite,  could  not  possibly 
appeal  to  him  or  to  his  generation,  nor  could  the 
archaic  style  which  captivated  Thorvaldsen  and 
his  period.  Michelangelo  aimed  at  the  perfect, 
and  found  it  first  in  statues  like  the  Torso,  and 
later  in  the  Laocoon.  He  had  for  these  the  deep- 
est admiration.  They  released  within  him  a  cre- 
ative desire  for  mastery  in  the  presentation  of 
the  human  body,  or  of  life  as  a  hopeless  but 
energetic  fight;  the  tragically  sublime. 

"Most  important  of  all  was  the  intellectual  lib- 
eration that  he  experienced,  together  with  his 
soaring  faith  in  a  platonic  ideal,  a  joy  in  that 
nature  which  had  been  condemned  for  so  long, 
and  a  passionate  love  for  the  human  form,  its 
miraculous  construction,  the  wonderful  play  of 
muscles,  its  hidden  mechanism,  the  whole  body 
as  an  expression  of  grief  and  happiness,  anger, 
suffering,  action,  repose." 

Regarding  Michelangelo's  attitude  toward  the 

81 


GEORG    BRANDES 

other  sex,  Georg  Brandes  has  much  to  say  that 
is  significant.  According  to  the  intellectual  tra- 
ditions of  the  time,  it  was  customary  to  look  upon 
heathen  sibyls  and  Hebrew  prophets  as  similar. 
Michelangelo's  indifference  to  woman  as  a  sex 
entity  disappeared  when  she  showed  herself  in- 
spired, divinely  spiritualized,  as  the  sibyl  was 
then  believed  to  be.  The  prophet  was  to  him  an 
understood  and  beloved  character,  for  in  Michel- 
angelo himself  there  was  something  prophetic. 
The  pathos  that  dwelt  within  him  had  this  qual- 
ity, "and  in  it,"  Brandes  declares,  "he  was  kin 
to  some  of  the  chief  characters  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. But  for  all  that,  his  intellect  was  of  his 
own  time,  heathenish,  Greco-Roman." 

Like  the  art  of  the  Egyptians,  Brandes  ex- 
plains, "that  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  a  culture 
art,  determined  by  ecclesiastical  domination. 
Whether  it  remains  identified  with  the  monot- 
onous forms  of  the  Byzantine,  or  gives  itself 
over  to  the  emotions,  it  presents  saints  of  both 
sexes,  whose  long  cloaks  cover  thin,  loose,  form- 
less bodies.  These  beings  appear  as  if  ashamed 
of  possessing  bodies  at  all. 

"The  Renaissance,  from  the  very  first,  ap- 
pears as  a  violent  reaction  against  this  concep- 
tion, and  it  nowhere  finds  a  more  emphatic  ex- 

82 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

pression  than  at  the  hands  of  Michelangelo.  To 
him  the  nude  body  was  the  very  crown  of  exist- 
ence ;  not  a  sinful  frame,  but  the  visualization  of 
beauty  and  the  decisive  and  true  subject  for  ideal 
art.  In  this  reaction  there  may  be  something 
heathenish.  Certainly,  some  ecclesiastical  digni- 
taries were  scandalized  when  the  ceiling  in  the 
Chapel  of  the  Holy  Father  was  thus  peopled 
with  swarms  of  stark-naked  youths.  But  this 
was  no  direct  exposition  of  heathenism,  nor  was 
it  an  expression  of  aversion  for  Catholicism — it 
was  only  the  purest  enthusiasm  for  nature." 

On  the  question  of  Michelangelo  as  the  master- 
sculptor  of  all  time,  Georg  Brandes  points  to  the 
four  figures  representing  Morning,  Day,  Even- 
ing and  Night  in  the  Sacristy  of  Lorenzo :  "The 
overpowering  originality  of  Michelangelo  stands 
forth  in  the  entirely  new  way  employed  in  the 
grouping  of  these  sepulchral  figures.  It  was  cus- 
tomary in  that  day  to  adorn  the  sarcophagus 
with  allegories  of  the  virtues.  But  the  idea  of  a 
tomb  evoked  in  Buonarroti  the  thought  that  all 
is  transitory,  all  is  perishable,  and  inspired  in 
him  the  unfolding  of  the  four  figures  that,  com- 
bined, express  Time,  that  which  calls  humanity 
to  face  life's  troubles  only  to  thrust  it  once  more 
down  into  the  grave. 

83 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"To  his  imagination  time  divided  itself  into 
four  periods,  and  he  saw  these  before  him  as 
human  forms,  ideals  fraught  with  power,  re- 
vealing in  the  position  and  inner  contrast  of  each 
separate  body  a  muscle  construction  that  is  al- 
ways intent,  always  appears  as  if  ready  to  take 
on  movement.  There  they  lie,  sorrowing,  groan- 
ing, convulsively  drawing  their  limbs,  up  under 
them,  or  tired  unto  death,  loathing  all  that  day 
and  night  has  to  give  them. 

"There  is  no  solemnity  about  them.  They  are 
unaware  that  they  have  spectators.  Their  man- 
ner is  that  of  inner  unrest,  or  else  contempt  for 
man.  To  them  there  is  no  joy  in  the  awakening 
to  a  new  day,  no  delight  in  the  noon  of  life,  no 
sweet  rest  in  sleep.  One  thing  is  common  to 
them  all :  They  suffer." 

Even  in  the  "Last  Judgment"  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  says  Brandes,  the  same  tendency  is  mani- 
fest. The  sorrowful  and  the  fearful  divert  at- 
tention from  the  celestial.  Those  risen  from  the 
dead  and  lifted  to  eternal  bliss  appear  no  less 
terrified  than  the  sinners  cast  from  heaven  into 
the  abyss  below. 

A  phase  of  Michelangelo's  genius  that  the  lay- 
man is  not  so  likely  to  come  in  contact  with  as 
compared  to  his  productions  of  sculpture  and 

84 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

paintings  is  his  mastery  as  a  draftsman.  He  was 
very  fond  of  sketching  children,  but  never  that 
which  is  trivial. 

"We  may  criticize  him  as  sculptor,  painter  and 
architect  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,"  says 
Georg  Brandes  in  referring  to  Michelangelo's 
sketches,  "his  dislike  for  the  commonplace,  that 
which  is  easily  obtained,  frequently  made  him 
seem  grotesque  in  his  grandeur.  But  with  the 
pen,  the  chalk  or  the  pencil  in  hand  he  is  abso- 
lutely faultless  and  incomparable.  .  .  .  With- 
out hesitation  we  can  say  that  there  has  never 
gone  forth  from  his  hand  a  single  drawing  in 
which  we  can  detect  the  slightest  weakness  or  a 
moment's  hesitancy.  Everything  bears  witness 
to  mastery  over  the  form  as  well  as  to  his  colossal 
personality.  In  these  sketches  genius  is  the  sole 
dictator." 

Brandes  singles  out  Michelangelo's  "The 
Archers,"  a  sketch,  "designed  with  great  care, 
executed  with  great  freedom.  .  .  .  Above  all 
it  makes  the  impression  of  a  swarm  of  forward 
striving  young  nude  figures  in  flight,  running, 
springing,  soaring.  The  positions,  the  flexible, 
strong  backs  and  legs,  the  outstretched  arms,  are 
expressive  of  the  fact  that  they  are  aiming  with 
their  bows  toward  an  object  that  they  want 

85 


GEORG    BRANDES 

to  hit  with  their  arrows,  although  the  bows  have 
been  left  out.  And  the  target  is  the  Hermes 
standing  far  to  the  right,  whose  beautifully 
modelled  torso  is  nude,  but  before  which  has 
been  placed  an  oblong  shield  toward  which  the 
arrows  are  directed.  .  .  .  Michelangelo  shows 
with  what  delight  he  has  drawn  the  backs  of 
these  sunlit  youths  which  light  up  like  a  Greek 
colonnade." 


86 


CHAPTER  XI 

EARLY  HOME  LIFE  OF  BRANDES  AND  THE  JEWISH 
QUESTION 

HAVING  come  thus  far  in  the  consideration 
of  the  main  works  of  Georg  Brandes,  the 
temptation  cannot  be  resisted  to  ask,  as  he  did 
in  the  case  of  Nietzsche:  What  is  the  value  of 
this  man,  is  he  interesting  or  not?  and  to  this 
may  be  added  what  Brandes  also  affirms,  that  in 
order  to  get  the  true  measure  of  any  book  it  is 
necessary  to  go  straight  through  any  work  to 
the  man  behind  it. 

In  this  casual  estimate  of  the  writings  of 
Brandes  the  reader  cannot  have  failed  to  have 
obtained  at  least  an  approximate  idea  as  to  the 
characteristics  of  this  Danish  critic  and  littera- 
teur. It  is  revealed  in  almost  everything  that 
he  has  written.  But  setting  aside  chronological 
order  and  turning  back  to  the  early  youth  of 
Brandes,  his  "Reminiscences,"  giving  his  child- 
hood experiences,  furnish  a  most  fascinating  pic- 
ture of  the  ground-work  that  proved  so  rich  in 

87 


GEORG    BRANDES 

results,  and  did  so  much  for  placing  Danish  lit- 
erature conspicuously  before  the  world. 

The  attachment  of  Georg  Brandes  for  his 
mother  is  a  charming  chapter  in  this  autobiog- 
raphy of  his  childhood  and  youth,  which  is  con- 
tinued in  two  subsequent  volumes,  bringing  his 
account  of  achievements  and  aspirations  up  to 
the  time  when  he  had  become  master  in  his  par- 
ticular field  of  endeavor.  Here,  also,  the  Jewish 
question,  as  it  concerned  Georg  Brandes,  is  dis- 
cussed with  utter  freedom.  On  this  point  he 
wrote:  "Nothing  was  ever  said  at  home  about 
any  religious  creed.  Neither  of  my  parents  was 
in  any  way  associated  with  the  Jewish  religion, 
and  neither  of  them  ever  went  to  the  synagogue." 

Fundamentally,  however,  the  Brandes  home 
was  Jewish,  and  while  disclaiming  any  denom- 
inational connection  with  the  faith,  all  through 
his  life  Georg  Brandes  has  been  a  champion  of 
Judaism  in  so  far  as  it  meant  religious  liberty 
of  the  individual  as  against  the  ignorance  and 
stupidity  of  those  whose  bigotry  was  adamant. 

When  Brandes  visited  the  United  States  in 
1914,  this  question  of  his  Jewishness  came  to  the 
fore  on  several  occasions.  In  common  with 
other  publications,  those  devoted  to  Jewish  inter- 
ests spoke  in  enthusiastic  terms  about  this  noted 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

visitor  and  'The  American  Hebrew,"  while  up- 
braiding Brandes  for  his  supposed  lack  of  at- 
tachment to  his  Jewish  ancestry,  nevertheless 
admitted  that  "whatever  he  may  claim  for  him- 
self, the  world  at  large  credits  his  talent  and 
genius  to  the  sum  total  of  what  Jews  here  gave 
to  the  civilized  world.  It  is  as  critics  that  Jews 
have  distinguished  themselves  in  the  past.  They 
have  been  the  bearers  of  civilization,  carrying 
with  them  from  the  lands  that  excluded  them  the 
germ  of  culture  with  which  they  had  been  im- 
pregnated. And  it  is  as  a  critic  that  Brandes 
figures  in  the  world's  thought. 

"He  sees  through  literature,"  continued  "The 
American  Hebrew,"  "having  that  keen  sense  of 
appreciation,  that  subtle  feeling  for  values,  that 
wide-sweeping  imagination  that  encompasses 
everything  he  reads  and  at  once  sees  it  a  part  of 
a  tendency,  of  a  current  of  life.  He  is  a  radical 
wrestling  from  convention  the  mask  of  unreality 
and  giving  to  thought  and  picture  their  natural 
aspects." 

Interviewed  by  this  same  publication,  Georg 
Brandes  declared  that  it  was  preposterous  and 
ridiculous  to  say  that  he  denied  his  ancestry.  "I 
have  been  attacked  all  my  life  as  a  Jew  and  be- 
cause I  am  a  Jew,  and  could  not  forget  nor  deny 

89 


GEORG    BRANDES 

that  I  am  a  Jew,  even  if  I  wanted  to,"  he  affirmed. 
"I  am  just  as  proud  as  Spinoza  was  to  belong 
to  the  race  of  Maimonides,  and  just  as  indignant 
as  he  probably  was  to  be  excommunicated  by 
some  of  them.  I  have  done  for  my  people  what 
I  have  done  for  many  other  oppressed  nations. 
I  have  done — as  a  Jew — for  the  Jews  whatever 
was  in  my  limited  power  as  a  writer.  Can  any- 
body refuse  me  the  name  of  Jew  because  I  do 
not  frequent  the  synagogue?  But  I  do  not  go 
to  any  church ;  I  am  not  religious." 

The  late  Peter  Nansen,  than  whom  no  other 
Scandinavian  writer  stood  closer  to  the  Brandes 
family,  in  an  intimate  sketch  of  that  household 
has  described  how  the  three  brothers,  Georg, 
Ernest  and  Edward,  clung  to  their  mother  with 
a  devotion  that  transcended  recording.  Nansen 
makes  a  point  of  referring  to  the  Jewish  atmos- 
phere of  the  Brandes  home  despite  the  fact  that 
religion  was  tabooed,  and,  as  he  tells  it,  with  the 
mother  the  central  attraction. 

"She  reigned  as  a  gentle  lady  of  authority," 
he  wrote,  "proud  of  her  three  talented  sons.  To 
all  appearance  she  was  entirely  unmindful  of  the 
many  malicious  attacks  directed  against  them, 
but  happy  that,  no  matter  how  they  advanced 
in  years,  they  continued  to  come  to  her  with  all 

90 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

their  sorrows  and  their  joys.  In  defeat  as  in 
victory  she  remained  the  same.  There  was 
neither  arrogance  nor  the  sense  of  humiliation 
in  her  soul.  She  knew  the  merits  of  her  sons. 
Just  as  little  as  the  most  hateful  assaults  con- 
founded her,  so  flattery  of  the  most  profuse  sort 
failed  to  affect  her." 

What  a  pity,  continues  Nansen,  that  the 
mother  did  not  live  to  see  the  real  flowering  of 
her  sons'  talents  as  the  one  became  a  great  politi- 
cal leader  of  his  country  and  the  other  carried 
the  name  of  Denmark  to  the  four  corners  of  the 
earth.  "And  who  really  desires  to  understand 
Georg  Brandes,"  he  concludes,  "must,  while 
reading  his  books,  think  of  a  fine  little  matron 
with  knowing,  gentle  eyes,  sitting  in  that  room 
busy  with  knitting  or  crocheting,  attentively  fol- 
lowing all  that  was  going  on  around  her." 

In  his  charming  volume,  "Two  Visits  to  Den- 
mark," undertaken  in  1872  and  1874,  Edmund 
Gosse  furnishes  a  most  entertaining  account  of 
his  first  meeting  with  Georg  Brandes  and  how 
this  friendship  not  only  became  a  bridge  for  the 
introduction  of  Danish  literature  in  England,  but 
as  throwing  new  light  on  the  Brandes  home  circle 
at  that  early  time. 

It  was  not  until  thirty-three  years  following 

91 


GEORG    BRANDES 

his  Danish  visits,  in  1911,  that  Gosse  put  his 
impressions  into  book  form.  "Exactly  how  I  had 
become  acquainted  with  Georg  Brandes  I  am 
no  longer  able  to  remember/'  he  wrote,  "but  be- 
tween my  visit  to  Denmark  in  1872,  when  I  was 
hardly  cognizant  of  his  existence,  and  my  return 
in  1874,  I  had  received  several  long  letters  from 
him  and  had  ardently  replied  to  them.  He  had 
assured  me,  what  indeed  I  could  but  easily  per- 
ceive, that  he  was  the  only  man  in  Denmark  who 
represented  the  spirit  of  modern  Europe  in 
belles-lettres.  I  had  become  aware  of  the  ex- 
tremely critical  position  which  he  had  created 
for  himself,  by  his  outspoken  language  in  a  small 
society  where  intellectual  ideas  were  pre-emi- 
nently alive,  but  where  orthodoxy,  alike  in 
taste,  in  manners  and  in  creed,  was  absolutely 
dominant." 


CHAPTER  XII 

EDMUND  GOSSE   IN    HIS  RELATION   TO  GEORG 
BRANDES 

VERY  interesting  is  Gosse's  account  of  the 
publishing   house    of    Gyldendal   and    how 
he  was  told  by  the  chief  clerk  of  this  famous  firm 
that  he  should  not  fail  to  make  the  acquaintance 
of  Georg  Brandes  while  in  Copenhagen. 

"The  suggestion  about  Brandes  deeply  inter- 
ested me,"  writes  Gosse.  "The  writings  of  the 
brilliant  young  Jewish  critic  had  not  escaped  my 
reading,  but  I  had  not  realized  the  degree  to 
which  the  successive  volumes  of  that  extraordi- 
nary work,  the  'Main  Stream  in  the  Literature 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century/  were  revolutionizing 
thought  and  feeling.  Of  this  famous  book,  which 
has  now  penetrated  into  every  language  of  Eu- 
rope, and  has  in  its  turn  become  commonplace 
and  classic,  the  first  volume  had  been  issued  just 
after  my  visit  to  Denmark  in  1872.  In  1874 
it  had  reached  its  third  volume,  and  had  achieved 
a  tumultuous  reputation." 

93 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Gosse  next  tells  how  since  1871  Georg 
Brandes  had  come  to  a  distinct  knowledge  of 
what  he  wanted  in  the  world  of  letters,  and  how 
by  his  reiterated  statement  of  that  want  he  had 
raised  a  host  of  enemies. 

"In  his  almost  solitary  situation,"  he  writes, 
"defiant  of  the  culture  around  him,  and  deeply 
suspected  by  it,  Brandes  supported  his  courage 
by  association  with  men  who  were  like-minded 
in  the  larger  countries  of  Europe.  .  .  .  These 
companionships  were  not  comprehended  or  ex- 
cused in  Copenhagen,  where,  indeed,  the  passion- 
ate admiration  of  Brandes  for  Taine,  and  his 
eager  devotion  to  Leopardi  and  to  the  newly 
revealed  Carducci,  were  quite  unintelligible. 
Brandes  continued,  however,  to  cultivate  literary 
friendships  in  most  of  the  European  countries, 
and  it  was  only  in  England  that,  until  our  cor- 
respondence began  in  1873,  with  the  exception  of 
John  Stuart  Mill,  he  possessed  no  acquaintance. 
He  had  never  found  himself  at  home  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  or  with  the  English  spirit.  Much 
of  our  intellectual  and  moral  nature  had  been 
obscure  or  repulsive  to  him ;  he  had  felt  us  to  lie 
outside  the  circle  of  European  culture." 

Georg  Brandes'  subsequent  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish literature  undoubtedly  owed  very  much  to 

94 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

what  Gosse  conveyed  to  the  eager  Dane.  The 
"Main  Currents"  give  ample  evidence  that  few 
modern  writers  have  entered  more  whole-heart- 
edly into  the  soul  and  substance  of  English  lit- 
erature. Gosse  gives  a  most  interesting  account 
of  how  he  and  Brandes  discussed  the  great 
poets  of  England.  Speaking  of  the  long  morn- 
ings he  spent  in  the  company  of  Brandes,  in  the 
latter's  book-crowded  rooms  in  Myntergade,  "the 
world  completely  shut  out,  all  the  jarring  ele- 
ments forgotten,  we  sat  side  by  side  on  his  broad 
sofa,  with  the  table  drawn  up  to  our  elbows  and 
a  heap  of  the  poets  before  us." 

And  there  "we  tore  the  heart  out  of  Shelley 
and  Wordsworth  and  Swinburne,  I  reading 
aloud,  Brandes  incessantly  interrupting  to  com- 
ment, to  admire,  often  startlingly  to  object  and 
deprecate.  He  took  nothing  for  granted;  the 
most  sacrosanct  passages  had  to  appear  before 
his  tribunal,  nimbus  in  hand,  and  plead  for  that 
immortality  which  we  all  thought  they  had  se- 
cured beyond  question.  His  eagerness,  his 
freshness,  his  new  point  of  view,  filled  me  with 
instructed  delight.  I  was  learning,  learning  at 
railroad-rate,  by  the  passion  of  sympathy.  When 
he  found  what  he  liked,  his  joy  was  ebullient." 

Edmund  Gosse's  narrative  of  his  Danish  ex- 

95 


GEORG    BRANDES 

periences  in  that  long  ago  is  replete  with  inter- 
esting description  of  the  customs  and  manners 
and  general  atmosphere  of  the  little  country 
nestling  between  the  North  Sea  and  the  Baltic, 
but  from  the  literary  point  of  view,  the  out- 
standing feature  must  ever  remain  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Brandes  and  its  effect  on  the 
cultural  relations  between  the  Danes  and  the 
English. 

Edmund  Gosse  found  himself  in  the  peculiar 
situation  in  Copenhagen  that  while  he  was  the 
guest  of  a  high  ecclesiastic,  Dean  Brunn  Juul 
Fog,  he  spent  a  large  part  of  his  time  in  the 
company  of  that  ultra-radical,  Georg  Brandes, 
whose  literary  innovations  were  driving  the  or- 
thodox and  conservatives  to  distraction.  Not 
that  Dean  Fog  was  a  bigot,  or  entirely  unsym- 
pathetic with  regard  to  modern  thinking.  But 
he  belonged  to  a  class  that  traditionally  stood 
on  guard  against  the  unknown,  and  for  this 
reason  accepted  things  as  they  were  as  best  suit- 
ing conditions  all  around. 

Very  illuminating  indeed  is  Gosse's  account 
of  what  this  position  of  the  conservative  element 
meant  in  its  relation  to  such  a  one  as  Georg 
Brandes.  "It  was  difficult  to  account  for  the 
repulsion  and  even  terror  of  Georg  Brandes 

96 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

which  I  heard  expressed  around  me  whenever 
his  name  came  up  in  general  conversation,"  he 
tells.  "At  the  present  day  we  have  grown  so 
lax  and  so  indulgent  to  opinions  that  it  is  not 
easy  for  us  to  reconstruct,  even  in  imagination, 
the  indignant  zealotry  of  earlier  times.  That 
universal  suspicion,  that  scurrilous  abuse,  of 
Shelley,  which  prevailed  about  1819,  which  cul- 
minated in  the  poet's  being  knocked  down  by  an 
English  bully  in  the  post  office  of  Pisa,  and 
which  were  reflected  in  the  loathsome  insinua- 
tions of  the  'Quarterly  Review' — these  are  the 
nearest  parallels  which  I  can  think  of  to  the  way 
in  which  Brandes  was  shunned  and  maligned  in 
Copenhagen  in  1874. 

"In  England  there  had  been  awakened  in  1866, 
and  then  still  existed,"  Gosse  continues,  "a  cer- 
tain horror  and  dread  of  Swinburne,  the  ridicu- 
lous nature  of  which  was,  however,  beginning 
to  be  apparent  even  to  the  Puritans.  But  the 
Danish  case  was  different.  Brandes  had  writ- 
ten, at  all  events,  no  'Dolores'  and  no  'Anactoria* ; 
there  was  nothing  in  his  essays  and  reviews 
which  could  give  even  a  pretext  for  this  kind 
of  scandal.  Indeed,  I  remember  thinking  that 
he  was  even  narrow  in  some  of  his  judg- 
ments. .  .  . 

97 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"But  Brandes  was  a  Jew,  an  illuminated 
specimen  of  a  race  little  known  at  that  time  in 
Scandinavia,  and  much  dreaded  and  suspected. 
That  a  scion  of  this  hated  people,  so  long  ex- 
cluded from  citizenship,  should  come  forward 
with  a  loud  message  of  defiance  to  the  exquisite 
and  effete  intellectual  civilization  of  Denmark, 
this  was  in  itself  an  outrage.  Scandinavians 
were  only  just  beginning  to  tolerate  the  idea  of 
Jews  in  the  community,  and  here  was  a  wholly 
impenitent  and  unchristianized  example  of  the 
race  standing  up  in  the  midst  of  the  national 
idols,  and  breaking  them  with  his  irony  and 
ridicule." 

The  tone  of  Copenhagen  then  was  graceful, 
romantic,  orthodox;  there  was  a  wide  apprecia- 
tion of  literary  speculation  of  a  certain  kind, 
kept  within  the  bounds  of  good  taste,  reverently 
attached  to  the  tradition  of  the  elders.  This  was, 
too,  markedly  national.  It  was  part  of  the  politi- 
cal isolation  of  Denmark,  of  the  pride  which  her 
two  European  wars  had  fostered  and  wounded, 
to  be  intellectually  self-sufficient.  It  was  ortho- 
dox to  believe  that  the  poetry  and  philosophy 
and  science  of  the  national  writers  was  all  that 
Danes  needed  to  know  of  a  modern  kind. 

"Here,  then,"  says  Gosse,  "was  an  angry  Jew, 

98 


with  something  of  the  swash-buckler  about  him, 
shouting  that  mental  salvation  was  impossible 
without  a  knowledge  of  'foreign  devils'  like 
Taine  and  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Schopenhauer, 
of  whom  dignified  and  reputable  Danes  desired 
to  hear  only  just  enough  to  enable  them  to  lift 
their  hands  and  shake  their  heads  at  the  men- 
tion of  such  dreadful  names.  There  was  some- 
thing exasperating,  too,  in  the  lofty  tone  which 
Brandes  adopted.  He  did  not  spare  the  sus- 
ceptibilities of  his  fellow-countrymen.  How- 
ever, his  revolutionary  ideas  have,  almost 
without  exception,  become  so  acceptable  in 
these  thirty-five  years  as  to  seem  positively  tame 
to-day." 

If  that  was  the  attitude  of  the  world  in  1911, 
when  Edmund  Gosse  published  his  "Two  Visits 
to  Denmark,"  how  much  more  should  the 
Brandes  ideals  be  considered  most  commonplace 
a  decade  later  when  rational  thinking  has  be- 
come the  possession  of  the  masses  everywhere. 
What  a  contrast  between  the  year  1874  and  1922 
when  the  occasion  of  Georg  Brandes'  eightieth 
birthday  was  seized  upon  by  entire  Denmark 
as  reflecting  honor  upon  the  nation  which  could 
claim  so  noteworthy  a  son. 


99 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CHAMPIONING     OPPRESSED     PEOPLES    WITHOUT 
FEAR    OR    FAVOR 

THERE  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  in  spite 
of  the  professed  irreligiosity  of  Brandes 
and  his  non-observance  of  Jewish  regulations 
from  the  standpoint  of  tradition,  he  has  never 
allowed  an  opportunity  to  pass  where  he  could 
stand  spokesman  for  the  people  of  his  race  as 
against  bigotry  and  ignorance.  This  trait  is  ob- 
servable in  all  his  writings.  In  the  "Main  Cur- 
rents of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature"  there 
are  innumerable  such  instances,  as  where,  in  the 
third  volume,  "The  Reaction  in  France,"  he 
points  to  Mirabeau  as  championing  religious 
toleration  during  a  debate  in  the  Constituent 
Assembly. 

"In  October,  1789,"  he  wrote,  "there  stood  at 
the  bar  of  the  National  Assembly  a  deputation 
of  curiously  dressed  men  with  Oriental  features. 
They  were  Jews  from  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  who 
had  been  deputed  by  their  fellow-believers  to  ap- 
peal for  mercy. 

'  'Most  noble  Assembly/  they  said,  'we  come 
100 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

in  the  name  of  the  Eternal,  who  is  the  source 
of  all  justice  and  truth,  in  the  name  of  God,  who 
has  given  to  all  men  the  same  rights  and  the 
same  duties,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  which  has 
been  outraged  for  centuries  by  the  infamous 
treatment  to  which  the  unfortunate  descendants 
of  the  oldest  of  nations  have  been  subjected  in 
every  country,  to  beseech  you  humbly  to  take  our 
unfortunate  fate  into  consideration. 
May  an  improvement  in  our  position,  which  we 
have  hitherto  desired  in  vain,  and  which  we  now 
tearfully  implore,  be  your  work,  your  benefac- 
tion.' " 

Brandes,  continuing,  writes  how  after  a  de- 
bate there  was  a  general  feeling  of  embarrass- 
ment. "Only  one  member  of  the  Assembly,"  he 
says,  "a  man  who  as  yet  had  attracted  no  notice, 
Maximilien  Robespierre,  spoke  in  favor  of  the 
motion  for  granting  the  Jews  equality.  He  de- 
clared their  vices  to  be  the  consequence  of  the 
degraded  position  in  which  they  had  been  kept 
But  he  was  alone  in  supporting  a  measure  which, 
significantly  enough,  classed  Protestants,  actors 
and  Jews  together.  The  human  rights  of  the 
Protestants  and  the  actors  were  acknowledged, 
but  as  Mirabeau  recognized  the  impossibility  of 
passing  the  clause  of  the  motion  which  con- 

101 


GEORG    BRANDES 

cerned  the  Jews,  he  adjourned  debate  on  this 
clause  indefinitely. 

"Two  years  passed.  In  1791  the  Jews  once 
more  appealed.  But  in  what  a  changed  tone! 
The  humble  prayer  of  the  slave  has  become  the 
peremptory  demand  of  the  man.  .  .  .  Two 
years  spent  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Revolution 
had  given  these  pariahs  not  only  self-esteem  but 
pride.  This  time  the  measure  passed  without 
debate." 

With  regard  to  the  position  of  the  Jews  in 
France  in  those  early  years,  Brandes  in  his  mono- 
graph on  Napoleon  Buonoparte  makes  it  a  point 
to  show  that  whether  as  Consul  or  Emperor  the 
latter  respected  the  religious  customs  of  this 
people  and  in  many  ways  favored  them.  And  in 
his  monumental  work  on  Caesar  the  Danish 
scholar  with  apparent  pride  tells  that  not  only 
did  the  Jews  of  his  time  honor  the  Dictator,  but 
no  people  within  the  empire  of  the  Romans  were 
more  horrified  than  they  when  the  great  man 
was  so  foully  murdered. 

In  his  books  on  Russia  and  Poland,  while 
ostensibly  emphasizing  the  literary  aspects  of  the 
countries  during  the  eighties,  Brandes  also 
touches  the  question  concerning  the  Jewish  pop- 
ulations. But  his  attitude  with  regard  to  Russia 

102 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

and  Poland  became  more  fully  pronounced  dur- 
ing the  great  war  when  Brandes  sternly  repri- 
manded those  responsible  for  the  anti-Semitic 
outbreaks  that  brought  such  misery  to  thousands 
of  Jews  in  those  lands.  Writing  and  speaking 
on  the  situation  in  Poland  at  the  start  of  the  war 
he  gave  vent  to  his  utter  disappointment  that  the 
Poles  should  be  so  indifferent  to  the  fates  of 
their  fellow-men,  just  because  their  beliefs 
differed. 

"It  would  be  most  ungrateful  for  me,"  he 
wrote  in  "The  World  at  War,"  "now  that  I  am 
going  to  speak  sharply  to  the  Poles,  if  I  did  not 
acknowledge  the  exceptional  friendship  and  kind- 
ness I  have  met  with  in  Russian  and  Austrian 
Poland.  And  for  this  reason  I  long  refrained 
from  making  an  unkind  remark  about  the  coun- 
try. In  1898,  I  refused  to  act  as  spokesman  for 
the  Ruthenians  against  the  Poles,  and  made  bit- 
ter enemies  of  the  Ruthenian  leaders,  who  never 
ceased  attacking  me,  and  I  was  dumb  as  a  wall 
when  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson,  shortly  before  he 
died,  attacked  the  Poles  at  the  Ruthenians' 
request. 

"Fortunately  his  attacks  were  so  exaggerated 
that  they  could  do  little  harm.  Bjornson  con- 
tended that  the  Poles  were  akin  to  the  devil  him- 

103 


GEORG    BRANDES 

self,  somewhat  as  he  was  conceived  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  I  knew  more  about  elections  and  electoral 
pressure  in  Galicia  than  Bjornson,  yet  I  re- 
mained silent  because  I  considered  it  beneath  me 
to  attack  a  people  placed  in  a  situation  so  dif- 
ficult that  it  could  defend  minor  injustices  as 
necessary  expedients. 

"Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Polish  Jews 
have  always  shared  the  sufferings  of  the  Polish 
Nationalists.  In  1794,  a  corps  of  Jewish  vol- 
unteers fought  under  Kosciusko;  their  colonel 
fell  in  1809.  In  1830,  however,  a  bigoted  Polish 
National  Government  refused  the  Jews  admis- 
sion to  the  army.  When  the  Jews  later  on  dared 
to  ask  for  the  same  educational  advantages  as 
the  rest  of  the  population,  Nicholas  I  punished 
them  by  banishing  30,000  families  to  the  steppes 
of  South  Russia,  where  they  were  made  to  suffer 
child  conscription.  All  their  boys  from  the  age 
of  six  were  sent  under  Cossack  guard  to  be 
trained  as  sailors.  Most  of  them  died  under 
way. 

"Poland's  great  misery  served,  for  a  time,  to 
muzzle  the  great  hatred  for  the  Jews  which  al- 
ways slumbers  in  the  masses,"  Brandes  con- 
tinues. "And  Poland's  distinguished  men  tried 
to  prevent  it  from  rising.  Poland's  greatest  poet, 

104 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

Adam  Mickiewicz,  in  his  masterpiece,  the  na- 
tional epic  of  Poland,  'Tan  Taadeuz'  (1834) 
made  the  Jewish  innkeeper  one  of  the  most  sym- 
pathetic figures  in  the  poem.  He  is  presented  in 
the  fourth  song  as  a  musical  genius,  a  master 
of  the  national  instrument,  the  cymbal,  and  the 
poem  culminates  when  Jankiel  plays  the  Dom- 
browski  march  for  Dombrowski  himself." 

In  "The  World  at  War"  Brandes  has  much  to 
say  about  the  pogroms,  the  instigating  causes, 
official  indifference  to  excesses  committed  against 
the  Jews  where  these,  as  frequently  was  the  case, 
were  not  directly  traceable  to  the  authorities 
themselves.  * 

"The  Russian  Poles'  anti-Semitic  campaign  is 
all  the  more  odious,"  he  declared,  "since  40,000 
Jewish  soldiers,  among  them  many  volunteers, 
served  in  the  Russian  army  and  as  the  Jews'  con- 
tributions to  the  army  and  the  Red  Cross  were 
boundless.  In  larger  communities  special  hos- 
pitals for  Russian  soldiers,  without  regard  to 
creed,  had  been  founded  with  Jewish  money. 

"It  will  be  explained,"  he  adds,  "that  it  is  be- 
cause of  my  race  that  I  now  make  this  appeal. 
Personally  my  descent  has  influenced  me  so  little 
that  I  have  been  frequently  attacked  in  national 
Jewish  papers  and  magazines  as  a  renegade  of 
racial  ties  and  faith." 

105 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SPOKESMAN   FOR   SCANDINAVIANS   NEUTRALITY   IN 

THE  WAR 

WHILE  the  world-war  automatically  kept 
Georg  Brandes  at  home  and  allowed  him 
to  complete  some  of  his  most  important  literary 
works,  Denmark's  neutral  position  and  the  little 
understood  reason  why  Scandinavia  had  to  stand 
apart  from  the  conflict  required  spokesmen  of 
international  renown  to  plead  her  case  abroad. 
The  fact  that  the  Schleswig  question  came  up  for 
consideration  during  the  great  struggle  made  it 
essential  that  every  loyal  Dane  should  come  for- 
ward in  order  to  strengthen  the  national  position. 
Georg  Brandes  as  publicist,  as  ardent  cham- 
pion of  Danish  neutrality  and  especially  as  de- 
fender of  Denmark's  right  to  have  returned  to 
her  the  Schleswig  province,  torn  from  the  mother 
country  in  the  war  with  Germany  in  the  sixties, 
proved  him  equal  to  the  great  task  he  had  set 
himself  with  regard  to  answering  the  reproofs 
hurled  at  the  Danes  because  they  could  not  see 
their  way  to  fly  in  the  face  of  the  German  ag- 

106 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

gressor.  Of  course,  to-day  it  is  well  understood 
that  Denmark  had  no  other  way  open  than  main- 
tain strict  neutrality.  But  while  national  tem- 
pers were  at  fever  heat,  reason  did  not  always 
prevail  as  against  what  each  country  considered 
its  indefeasible  right. 

In  "The  World  at  War,"  Georg  Brandes 
speaks  his  mind  freely  on  the  questions  of  that 
day.  No  one  can  accuse  him  of  partiality  toward 
Germany.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  attitude 
turned  many  of  his  former  German  friends 
against  him.  Introductory  to  the  book,  as  it 
were,  there  is  incorporated  in  the  volume  some- 
thing that  Brandes  wrote  as  early  as  1881,  which 
is  almost  prophetic.  Speaking  about  the  political 
outlook  he  said:  "The  love  of  liberty,  in  the 
English  sense,  is  to  be  found  in  Germany  only 
among  men  of  the  generation  which,  within  ten 
years,  will  have  disappeared.  And  when  that 
time  comes,  Germany  will  lie  alone,  isolated, 
hated  by  the  neighboring  countries:  a  strong- 
hold of  conservatism  in  the  centre  of  Europe. 
Around  it,  in  Italy,  in  France,  in  Russia,  in  the 
North,  there  will  rise  a  generation  imbued  with 
international  ideas  and  eager  to  carry  them  out 
in  life.  But  Germany  will  lie  there,  old  and  half 
stifled  in  her  coat  of  mail,  armed  to  the  teeth, 

107 


GEORG    BRANDES 

and  protected  by  all  the  weapons  of  murder  and 
defense  which  science  can  invent. 

"And  there  will  come  great  struggles  and 
greater  wars.  If  Germany  wins,  Europe  in  com- 
parison with  America,  will  politically  be  as  Asia 
in  comparison  to  Europe.  But  if  Germany  loses, 
then  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  seemly  to  play  the 
prophet." 

What  makes  "The  World  at  War"  particu- 
larly interesting  is  the  fact  that  it  has  that  jour- 
nalistic touch  which,  combined  with  literary 
treatment,  proves  the  author  as  much  at  home 
in  current  affairs  as  when  closeted  in  his  study 
with  belles  lettres  as  his  goal.  The  newspaper 
contributions  of  Georg  Brandes,  in  fact,  consti- 
tute an  activity  in  itself. 

The  long  established  friendship  between 
Brandes  and  Georges  Clemenceau,  which  found- 
ered on  the  rock  of  neutrality  that  the  Danish 
writer  looked  upon  as  immovable  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Scandinavian  nations,  has  not  as 
yet  been  renewed.  The  controversial  positions 
of  the  two  eminent  men  for  a  time  occupied  the 
press  of  all  countries.  Bitter  as  was  Clemenceau 
in  his  attack,  Brandes  always  replied  with  due 
regard  for  the  period  before  the  war  when  their 
relationship  was  of  the  most  intimate  kind. 

108 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

It  is  characteristic  of  Brandes*  entire  attitude 
when  he  said  in  one  of  his  answers  to  Clemen- 
ceau  that  "no  Dane  who  lived  through  1864 
could  ever  forget  that  Denmark  lost  two-fifths 
of  its  territory;  nor  that  Prussia  and  Austria 
stripped  us  not  only  of  the  territory  which,  from 
a  national  if  not  from  a  political  point  of  view, 
they  may  have  had  some  right  to,  but  in  North 
Schleswig  annexed  territory  absolutely  Danish 
in  language,  character,  culture,  and  feeling. 

"We  have  not  forgotten,  either,"  Brandes  con- 
tinued, "that  the  promise  of  1866,  by  which  the 
Danes  of  North  Schleswig  were  to  be  given  the 
opportunity  of  becoming  Danish  again,  was 
never  kept.  And  we  have — with  deeper  interest 
and  a  more  quickened  feeling  than  the  French — 
witnessed  the  German  regime's  increasing  and 
incessant  persecution  of  Danish  language  and 
spirit  in  North  Schleswig. 

"Nevertheless,  some  of  us  still  retain  a  frag- 
ment of  political  insight,  and  we  would  regard 
a  Danish  declaration  of  war  on  Germany  as 
sheer  madness.  The  war  of  1864  was  not  de- 
clared by  Denmark;  it  was  accepted  because 
Denmark's  naive  and  misplaced  confidence  in  an 
English  promise  to  the  effect  that  in  case  of 
war  Denmark  would  not  stand  alone.  If  proof 

109 


GEORG    BRANDES 

of  modern  statesmen's  political  negligence 
and  lack  of  foresight  is  desired,  the  attitude 
of  France  and  England  during  the  war  of  1864 
is  a  fertile  study.  France,  then  dominated  by 
Napoleon  III,  believed  she  was  pursuing  a  wise 
policy  in  supporting  Prussia,  hoping  naively  that 
Bismarck  might  some  time  do  her  a  good  turn 
therefor ;  and  England,  without  the  slightest  pro- 
test, allowed  Prussia  to  acquire  the  port  of  Kiel. 
If  to-day  Denmark  has  neither  a  fleet  capable  of 
offensive  action,  nor  a  boundary  which  can  be 
defended,  this  is  due  to  England's  and  France's 
attitude  in  1864." 

The  fact  that  Danish  neutrality  did  not  pre- 
vent the  Allies  from  demanding  that  Germany 
return  to  Denmark  part  of  North  Schleswig  is 
conclusive  proof  that  the  Danish  position  must 
have  been  recognized  as  satisfactory.  On  the 
other  hand,  Brandes,  while  striving  with  might 
and  main  to  uphold  the  Danish  spirit  in  the  ter- 
ritory conquered  by  Germany  in  1864,  clung  to 
his  opinion  that  it  would  be  detrimental  to  Den- 
mark's best  interests  to  have  the  German-col- 
onized southern  part  of  Schleswig  join  Den- 
mark when  the  plebiscite  pointed  the  other  way. 

In  what  he  terms  "The  Second  Part  of  the 
Tragedy,"  a  continuation  of  "The  World  at 

no 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

War,"  Georg  Brandes  deals  with  the  first  year 
of  peace  following  the  armistice.  He  presents  to 
view  many  diverse  characters,  and  some  of  his 
findings,  as  set  forth  between  October  22,  1918, 
and  September  15,  1919,  turned  out  only  too  true 
as  the  international  chaos  continued.  He  pro- 
ceeds relentlessly  against  the  peace  terms  of  Ver- 
sailles, but  at  the  same  time  he  handles  Lenin 
and  the  Bolshevik  regime  without  mercy.  What 
he  here  writes  about  Russia  is  an  illuminating 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  great  war  and  after. 
With  regard  to  Brandes'  relations  with  Wil- 
liam Archer,  who,  like  Clemenceau,  claimed 
many  years'  acquaintance  with  the  Danish  critic 
and  who  also  felt  aggrieved  because  of  Den- 
mark's neutrality  and  Brandes'  defense  of  the 
same,  there  likewise  sprang  up  a  newspaper  con- 
troversy which,  happily,  ended  in  the  renewal 
of  the  friendship  between  them.  As  he  knows 
the  English,  Brandes  says,  there  is  too  much 
common  sense  in  them  to  allow  them  to  go  to 
the  same  lengths  as  other  nations  with  respect 
to  keeping  up  hatreds.  In  an  interview  with  a 
representative  of  the  "New  York  Times"  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  he  declared  that  the  world 
of  to-day  is  being  destroyed  by  the  animosities 
that  war  has  nourished. 

ill 


GEORG    BRANDES 

In  support  of  his  contention,  Brandes  spoke 
first  of  all  of  France.  It  is  full,  he  said,  of 
chauvinism.  Never  had  he  known  the  French  to 
be  so  chauvinistic  as  now,  and  when  a  small 
group  of  Frenchmen,  headed  by  Henri  Barbusse, 
do  what  they  can  against  this  attitude,  they  are 
isolated  and  powerless  to  make  themselves  felt. 
Brandes  reinforced  the  point  by  referring  to  his 
controversy  with  Clemenceau.  For  ten  years 
they  practically  lived  together.  As  the  Danish 
critic  told  the  story  : 

"During  the  war,  when  some  of  the  Danes 
were  getting  rich  out  of  profiteering,  Clemen- 
ceau wrote  in  his  paper :  'The  Danes  are  a  nation 
without  pride/  I  immediately  protested.  Why 
should  all  the  Danes  be  branded  a  nation  without 
pride  because  there  were  some  profiteers  among 
us?  Are  there  not  profiteers  everywhere — in 
America,  for  instance? 

"But  my  protest  infuriated  Clemenceau.  Ever 
since  he  has  been  in  a  fury  against  me.  'I  knew 
Brandes  for  ten  years/  he  wrote,  'yet  never  did 
I  know  what  kind  of  a  man  he  really  was  until 
now!'  How  can  that  be  true?  How  can  a  man 
have  two  meals  a  day  with  another  for  ten  years 
and  not  know  what  kind  of  man  the  other  is 
until  something  that  happens  at  the  end  of  those 

112 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

ten  years  accidentally  lets  him  know?  Why,  that 
is  absurd!  Yes,  Clemenceau  hates  me  now. 
Everywhere  there  is  hate." 

No  European  writer  is  more  frequently  sought 
than  Georg  Brandes  for  the  purpose  of  learning 
his  opinion  about  the  great  events  that  make  his- 
tory. America  has  also  learned  that,  small  as  is 
Denmark,  it  possesses  in  him  a  man  with  clear 
vision  whose  judgment  may  not  suit  every  taste 
but  whose  predictions  in  matters  of  international 
importance  have  seldom  failed  to  occur  as  out- 
lined. And  it  is  because  he  combines  the  scholar 
with  the  publicist,  and  keeps  abreast  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  moment,  that  Brandes  has  been  able 
to  present  such  magnificent  pictures  of  the  great 
personalities  of  the  past  and  makes  them  live 
again. 


113 


CHAPTER  XV 

GEORG     BRANDES     AS     IMPROMPTU     SPEAKER     AND 
PUBLICIST 

IT  is  not  always  the  case  that  a  noted  writer  is 
also  conspicuous  in  affairs  of  great  public  in- 
terest, or  as  a  speaker  who  can  hold  his  audience 
by  sheer  force  of  personality,  as  well  as  through 
the  abounding  knowledge  of  which  he  may  be 
the  fortunate  possessor. 

Georg  Brandes'  impromptu  speeches,  the  nu- 
merous addresses  delivered  by  him  on  stated  oc- 
casions, and  the  frequency  with  which  he  is 
called  upon  whenever  some  striking  event  neces- 
sitates the  presence  of  some  individual  truly  rep- 
resentative of  the  world  of  literature,  are  the 
best  commentaries  as  to  what  he  stands  for  at 
this  day.  The  sum  and  substance  of  his 
speeches,  covering  over  half  a  century,  Brandes 
incorporated  in  a  volume  that  makes  as  fascinat- 
ing reading  as  any  novel.  Here  we  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  real  Georg  Brandes;  the 
satirist,  the  sympathetic  adviser  of  the  student 
just  out  of  college;  the  arraigner  of  stupidity 

114 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

"that  lords  it  in  high  places";  the  man  who  has 
run  the  gamut  from  being  looked  upon  askance 
as  a  destroyer  of  civilization  as  it  exists,  until 
the  world  to-day  acclaims  him  the  equal  of  the 
foremost  personalities  of  his  generation,  in  re- 
spect to  critical  acumen  and  literary  observation. 

This  book,  "Speeches,"  as  Brandes  tells  in  the 
introduction,  is  the  collected  expressions  of  an 
individual  who  has  traveled  much  and  seen  much. 
It  ranges  from  characterization  of  cities  and  in- 
dividuals to  the  relation  of  personal  experiences 
in  the  life  of  Brandes  himself.  In  all  there  are 
some  seventy-odd  speeches,  chosen  from  among 
a  far  greater  number  delivered  by  him  during 
his  long  and  busy  career.  The  great  merit  of  the 
work,  as  read  after  one  gains  an  acquaintance 
with  his  other  writings,  is  that  in  many  instances 
it  visualizes  the  Brandes  process  and  sheds  new 
light  on  his  achievements.  Its  autobiographical 
tenor  is  what  makes  it  the  best  kind  of  self- 
revelation. 

In  December,  1876,  Brandes  spoke  before  the 
Students'  Association  of  the  Christiania  Univer- 
sity under  circumstances  that  would  have  dis- 
couraged one  less  sure  of  himself  than  this  lance- 
breaker  of  the  eighties.  He  had  been  denied  the 
privilege  of  speaking  in  any  of  the  halls  directly 

115 


GEORG    BRANDES 

within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  university  authori- 
ties. But  the  Norwegian  student  youth  were  al- 
ready then  familiar  with  his  battles  at  home  and 
anxious  to  hear  what  he  had  to  tell  them  about 
the  progressive  movement  that  he  was  almost 
alone  in  championing  in  Scandinavia. 

It  was  a  speech  that  has  never  been  forgotten 
in  Christiania.  As  Brandes  records  it,  the  main 
reason  why  the  university  authorities  had  re- 
fused him  house-room  was  because  he  should  at 
one  time  have  said  that  the  offering  of  Isaac  was 
a  legend.  He  also  expressed  his  surprise  that  a 
country  which  ranked  first  in  Scandinavia  with 
respect  to  literature,  whose  artists  and  scientists 
had  distinguished  themselves  in  many  directions, 
should  feel  a  need  for  hearing  from  one  who, 
like  himself,  had  been  termed  an  "agitator." 

"When  I  ask  what  use  you  have  for  an  agi- 
tator," Brandes  said  in  addressing  the  students, 
"I  always  get  the  same  answer:  'We  are  intel- 
lectually suffocated.  We  possess  not  even  the 
least  religious  liberty  in  this  so-called  land  of 
freedom.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  liberal  move- 
ment inaugurated  by  a  Norwegian  would  do 
more  harm  than  good.  The  time  is  not  yet.  We 
feel  as  if  the  pressure  is  not  to  be  shaken  off.' 

"But  is  that  not  an  illusion  ?  A  friend  of  mine, 
116 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

the  young  art-historian,  Julius  Lange,  when  a 
little  boy,  was  put  in  a  school  in  Copenhagen 
which  was  conducted  by  a  couple  of  old  maids 
who  very  carefully  made  notes  of  the  child's 
merits  and  shortcomings,  especially  the  latter. 
But  already  the  first  week  this  was  found :  'The 
little  Julius  does  not  know  his  figures,'  and  for 
some  time  after  it  was  still :  'The  little  Julius  does 
not  yet  know  his  figures.' 

"The  boy's  father,  the  old  and  highly  respected 
pedagogue,  author  of  'School  and  Life,'  to  the 
great  consternation  of  the  old  ladies  then  wrote 
on  the  report-card:  'Will  you  then  not  have  the 
goodness  to  teach  the  little  Julius  his  figures  ?' 

"Permit  me  to  apply  these  words  to  those  in 
this  audience  who  complain  of  this  pressure: 
Why  don't  you  shake  it  off?" 

Since  that  memorable  first  appearance  in 
Christiania,  Georg  Brandes  has  been  a  frequent 
and  a  highly  honored  guest  in  that  city,  and  none 
have  been  more  anxious  to  pay  him  tribute  than 
the  very  university  authorities  that  feared  his 
"agitation"  in  the  year  1876.  That  it  was  due 
to  him  in  large  measure  that  Henrik  Ibsen  spread 
the  fame  of  Norway  broadcast  is  not  the  least 
debt  that  Norwegians  owe  the  Danish  critic. 

"Speeches"  takes  the  reader  to  Paris,  Rome, 
117 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Berlin,  London  and  other  great  world  centres 
where  Brandes'  versatility  as  orator  found  full 
opportunity  to  display  itself.  On  June  15,  1906, 
the  society,  "Les  Lettres"  of  France  gave  a  din- 
ner in  honor  of  Anatole  France  and  Brandes,  in 
the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  On  this  occasion  the  lit- 
erary and  social  world  of  Paris  had  gathered  in 
force,  since  two  such  intellectual  giants  were 
the  centre  of  attraction.  Replying  to  a  toast, 
Brandes  expressed  his  gratification  in  being  hon- 
ored along  with  so  great  a  man  as  France,  "one 
whose  intellectual  fineness  and  artistry  prohibits 
that  my  name  should  be  mentioned  in  unison 
with  his." 

"Nevertheless,"  Brandes  continued,  "in  one 
direction  I  dare  say  I  approach  close  to  him:  in 
my  love  of  liberty  and  justice.  Just  as  the  op- 
pressed people  of  Europe  and  Asia  know  how 
to  treasure  his  name,  his  enthusiasm  for  the  in- 
dependence of  nations,  so  my  name  may  not 
be  entirely  unknown  in  that  respect.  We  have, 
if  not  side  by  side,  so,  at  least,  with  common 
purpose,  fought  the  good  fight  for  the  people 
who  suffer  from  the  coercive  regime  of  the  con- 
queror and  the  autocrat,  and  also  for  the  poor 
and  weak  who  groan  beneath  the  tyranny  of 

118 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

class.  Men  who  think  and  speak  are  their  nat- 
ural defenders. 

"The  Armenians  had  asked  me  to  come  to 
Berlin  to  champion  their  cause  before  the  Ger- 
man public  and  attack  the  Turkish  policy  of  the 
Kaiser.  The  task  was  no  easy  one.  That  was 
a  time  when  I  should  have  liked  to  have  had 
Anatole  France  at  my  side.  He  understands 
both  how  to  attack  and  to  please.  I  knew  only 
how  to  attack. 

"Anatole  France  is  highly  placed  in  the  world. 
His  voice  carries  far  and  wide.  My  position  is 
less  happy,  since  I  belong  to  a  people  whose  lan- 
guage is  unknown  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  Anatole 
France  is  read  in  the  original;  all  know  and 
admire  his  exquisite  style.  I  am  only  known 
through  translations ;  sometimes  translations  af- 
ter translations,  and  I  consider  it  almost  lucky 
for  me  that  French  is  about  the  only  leading 
language  of  Europe  into  which  very  little  of  mine 
has  been  rendered.  That  makes  it  possible  for 
me  to  make  you  believe  that  my  books  would 
read  very  beautifully  in  French. 

"But,  no!  It  is  impossible  to  produce  any- 
thing artistic  except  in  one's  own  language. 
When  you  take  away  his  own  tongue,  you  strip 
the  writer  of  his  skin,  as  with  Marsya  of  old." 

119 


GEORG    BRANDES 

It  is  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  when  ad- 
dressing a  French  audience,  Georg  Brandes  em- 
ploys the  French  language.  And  in  England,  it 
is  English  that  is  his  instrument  of  appeal.  In 
the  Authors'  Club  of  London,  before  the  Royal 
Society  of  Literature,  the  Shakespeare  Reading 
Society,  the  Playgoers'  Club  of  Manchester,  or  in 
Edinburgh,  wherever  Brandes  has  spoken,  his 
remarkable  grasp  of  the  English  language  car- 
ried surprise. 

In  a  speech  that  he  delivered  in  the  Polyglot 
Club  of  London,  November  29,  1913,  he  referred 
to  the  fact  that  years  before  this  club  had  invited 
him  to  become  its  president.  Probably  at  that 
time  he  had  no  more  idea  than  most  people  that 
a  great  world-war  impended,  but  what  he  had 
to  say  about  national  hatreds  and  misunder- 
standings was  amply  demonstrated  as  a  fact 
when,  less  than  a  year  later,  Europe  burst  into 
flame. 

"But  in  the  Polyglot  Club  national  enmities 
have  no  existence,"  declared  Brandes.  "There 
is  no  persecution  of  languages,  classes  do  not 
fight  each  other  for  supremacy.  Here  reigns  hu- 
manity, the  humanity  that  the  conquering  nation- 
ism  of  to-day  considers  a  childish  dream  from 
the  eighteenth  century.  Within  these  walls  hu- 

/  120 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

manity  is  a  living  reality,  such  as  the  future  will 
find  it  to  be — the  great  power.  It  is  a  unique 
thing,  it  is  grand  and  beautiful,  this  to  be  with- 
out national  prejudices  in  a  century  like  ours. 

"You  have  founded  a  little  university  within 
a  club,  a  world  in  a  nutshell.  But  he  who  says 
university,  says  universum.  Newton,  Voltaire, 
Goethe  smile  down  on  you  from  their  celestial 
abode." 

When  the  tercentenary  of  Shakespeare  was 
being  celebrated  throughout  the  world,  Den- 
mark's unique  contribution  was  a  performance 
of  Hamlet  at  the  Kronborg  Castle,  Elsinore, 
where  the  Melancholy  Dane  was  supposed  to 
have  trod  on  life's  stage  in  all  that  solitary 
grandeur  that  made  the  character  immortal. 
While  this  outdoor  performance  proved  an  event 
in  European  theatrical  circles,  it  fell  to  Georg 
Brandes  to  do  the  introductory  honors  on  that 
occasion.  He  spoke  of  Hamlet's  fame  and  how 
through  him  Denmark  had  won  renown.  He 
showed  how  the  influence  of  Shakespeare  on  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  Danes  had  been  exceed- 
ingly great.  Brandes  never  appeared  to  greater 
advantage  before  a  Danish  audience  than  in  that 
hour  when  the  ramparts  of  Elsinore  Castle  re- 

121 


GEORG    BRANDES 

sounded  to  his  impassioned  speech  in  memory  of 
the  Bard  of  Avon. 

With  regard  to  the  many  speeches  delivered  by 
Brandes  when  in  America  in  1914,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  they  occupy  a  chapter  in  the  life-his- 
tory of  the  man.  In  New  York,  Chicago,  Minne- 
apolis and  other  places,  wherever  he  went  he  not 
only  lectured  before  enthusiastic  audiences,  but 
was  lionized  at  banquets  and  other  entertain- 
ments and  was  called  upon  to  speak.  Everywhere 
he  was  made  the  subject  of  ovations;  through- 
out, Brandes  proved  himself  the  versatile  orator 
and  extemporaneous  speaker. 

The  final  speech  included  in  the  volume  in 
question  is  dated  July  2,  1919,  and  was  in  honor 
of  the  celebrated  Swedish  writer,  Hjalmar 
Soederberg.  Since  then,  however,  Brandes  has 
delivered  some  of  his  most  important  addresses 
which,  it  is  to  be  assumed,  some  day  will  consti- 
tute a  second  volume  of  his  "Speeches."  It  is 
very  certain  that  when  Scandinavia,  in  common 
with  the  rest  of  Europe,  paid  tribute  to  Moliere 
on  the  three  hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birth, 
the  address  by  Brandes  in  the  Dagmar  Theatre 
of  Copenhagen  proved  him  as  great  a  master  of 
speech  as  ever  and  brought  the  distinguished  au- 
dience in  complete  rapport  with  the  French 

122 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

dramatist  whom  the  Danish  scene  owed  so  much. 
Had  there  been  no  Moliere  it  is  quite  certain 
that  Ludwig  Holberg,  the  "Danish  Moliere," 
would  never  have  achieved  what  he  did. 

It  was  the  task  of  Brandes  to  speak  on  Jean 
Baptiste  Poquelin,  otherwise  Moliere,  before  the 
performance  of  "Tartuffe"  at  the  Dagmar 
Theatre.  And  with  what  keen  perception,  with 
what  surety  and  mastery  of  facts  accumulated 
during  a  lifetime  he  limned  that  remarkable 
career.  In  ten  years  Moliere  wrote  thirty  plays, 
of  which  at  least  ten  are  masterpieces.  He  is 
actor,  theatrical  director,  instructor,  playwright 
— in  every  direction  his  genius  strikes  fire. 
Brandes  enters  into  the  personality  of  the  great 
Frenchman,  his  daily  life  and  struggles.  One 
seems  to  hear  in  that  oration  an  echo  of  what 
the  Danish  scholar  himself  had  to  contend  with 
until  the  world  recognized  his  worth.  If  the 
"Voltaire"  of  Brandes  constitutes  one  of  his 
chief  achievements,  most  certainly,  had  he  writ- 
ten a  companion-piece  about  Moliere  it  could  not 
have  been  other  than  a  similarly  excellent  work. 
As  it  is,  we  shall  probably  have  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  anniversary  address  and  detached 
sketches  of  the  French  dramatist  written  by 
Brandes  in  years  gone  by. 

123 


CHAPTER  XVI 

UNIQUE    INTERPRETATION    OF    GODS    AND    HEROES 
IN  HOMER 

A  LECTURE  that  could  fittingly  be  included 
in  such  a  second  volume  as  is  suggested  is 
the  one  on  Homer  which  Brandes  delivered  on  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  first  appearance  on 
the  platform  of  the  University  of  Copenhagen. 
It  has  frequently  been  remarked  that  Brandes1 
entire  nature  is  Greek.  However  this  may  be, 
his  address  on  Greek  civilization  in  the  time  of 
Homer,  on  Greek  heroes  and  Greek  worship,  pro- 
claimed the  Danish  scholar  as  sympathetic  to  a 
degree.  And  if  his  mind  is  of  Greek  mold,  a 
study  of  his  features  brings  home  how  his  long 
acquaintance  with  the  histories  and  life-works  of 
the  men  of  ancient  Greece  seem  reflected  in  that 
facial  contour  which  is  a  very  playground  for 
his  emotions.  Athens  has  stamped  on  his  fea- 
tures its  cultural  past  and  philosophic  tendencies, 
blending  amiability  and  aloofness;  characteris- 
tics of  the  great  thinker  and  the  great  poet. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  when  Georg  Brandes 

124 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

appeared  before  that  distinguished  audience 
gathered  in  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  the 
reason  why  he  chose  Homer  and  ancient  Greece 
for  his  subject  may  have  been  that  he  then  con- 
templated the  visit  that  he  subsequently  paid  the 
land  of  the  Hellenes.  At  any  rate,  it  is  worth 
noting  that  when  Brandes  arrived  in  Athens  he 
was  received  with  every  honor  due  a  famous 
man.  The  Greek  Government  placed  a  hand- 
some villa  at  the  disposal  of  the  great  critic,  with 
the  request  that  he  make  his  stay  a  lengthy  one. 
The  University  of  Athens  conferred  on  him  the 
highest  distinction  within  the  gift  of  those 
authorities. 

There  is,  then,  a  direct  connection  between 
anything  that  Brandes  had  to  say  about  Greek 
antiquity  and  his  most  recent  visit  to  the  land 
of  Homer.  For  which  reason  Homeric  Greece, 
as  depicted  in  the  anniversary  address,  takes  on 
an  added  importance  when  Brandes  declared 
that  "he  who  has  seen  modern  Greece  may  un- 
derstand the  nature  of  ancient  Hellas." 

For,  Brandes  emphasized,  with  particular  ref- 
erence to  the  gods  and  heroes  of  Homeric  Greece, 
"Hellenic  greatness  springs  from  the  harmoni- 
ous interplay  of  the  various  human  faculties;  it 
is  a  thing  of  the  inner  man.  Allness  to  the 

125 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Greek  is  cosmos,  order,  beauty.  Even  his  re- 
ligion is  a  beautiful  ceremony,  for  religion  to 
him  is  not  the  fear  of  a  god  who  commands  and 
prohibits.  It  finds  expression  instead  in  the  fes- 
tive procession,  the  song,  the  dance. 

"Although  the  Greeks  before  Homer  were 
acquainted  with  mysticism,"  Georg  Brandes  de- 
clared, "there  was  little  of  this  feeling  when  the 
poems  appeared.  Back  of  the  Homeric  gods  lies 
Fate,  corresponding  in  its  relentless  fixity  to 
what  we  mean  by  the  inexorableness  of  death  or 
the  unvarying  character  of  natural  law.  What 
the  Greek  chiefly  prizes  is  common  sense,  limita- 
tion, harmony.  His  world  is  not  infinite;  but  it 
is  a  harmonious  whole. 

"A  time  arrives  when  the  vague  deific  person- 
alities outlined  by  the  Greek  imagination  stand 
back  to  make  room  for  a  new  figure,  the  hero. 
And  the  development  of  this  new  personality 
forms  a  decisive  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
Greek  mind.  In  the  Greek  hero  man  realizes  his 
own  strength  and  power,  and  arises  as  a  free 
being.  At  first,  it  is  true,  the  hero  represents 
no  qualities  save  bodily  strength.  He  is  both 
cruel  and  uncouth.  But  gradually  he  becomes 
more  and  more  humane,  and  increasing  tasks 
bring  into  play  all  human  qualities.  Each  little 

126 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

district  in  Greece  has  its  local  heroes  who  are 
held  in  fond  memory  and  worshiped  as  superior 
to  those  of  the  neighboring  places.  The  hero  is 
a  demi-god  and  a  citizen  at  the  same  time. 

"We  see  these  heroes  vying  with  one  another 
to  secure  distinction:  Achilles,  Agamemnon, 
Odysseus,  Aias,  Diomedes.  Each  has  his  hon- 
ored day. 

"The  first  striking  event  in  the  intellectual  his- 
tory of  Hellas  is  the  emergence  of  the  hero.  The 
next  is  the  hero's  absorption  of  the  gods,  his 
taking  possession  of  them.  The  excavations  of 
the  last  fifty  years  at  Hissarlik,  Mucenae  and 
Cyprus  have  made  us  acquainted  with  the  pre- 
historic deities  who  antedate  historic  Greece  and 
yet  are  intimately  linked  with  it.  When  in  the 
Iliad  the  swift-flowing  river  Xanthus  grows 
angry  with  Achilles  for  having  choked  its  cur- 
rent with  the  bodies  of  the  slain,  and  when,  ex- 
posed to  the  fire  of  the  Hephaestus  it  cries  to 
Hera  for  aid,  then  we  begin  to  have  the  genuine 
personification. 

"A  northern  race,  a  people  born  under  a 
clouded  sky  and  accustomed  to  look  upon  nature 
as  accursed  and  mankind  as  tainted  with  original 
sin,  a  people  consequently  sighing  after  deliver- 
ance, can  have  no  conception  of  the  heartfelt 

127 


GEORG    BRANDES 

enthusiasm  with  which  the  Athenians  of  an- 
tiquity intoned  the  hymn  in  praise  of  Pallas 
Athene.  To  them  she  was  pure  reason,  wisdom, 
wit — all  that  we  term  genius.  She  was  more. 
She  was  the  city's  providential  protectress,  for- 
ever youthful,  healthy,  strong.  Yet  she  was  at 
the  same  time  human — witness  her  predilection 
for  Achilles  and  her  pact  with  him  against 
Hector." 

Excerpts  like  these  from  an  address  sparkling 
throughout  as  delivered  in  the  Danish  language, 
of  which  Brandes  is  past  master,  in  their  trans- 
lated form  give  but  a  faint  idea  of  the  Homeric 
picture  presented  on  that  memorable  November 
evening  of  1921,  in  the  hall  of  the  Copenhagen 
University.  And  yet,  to  describe  Georg  Brandes' 
activity  even  casually  it  is  essential  that  at  least 
this  slight  reference  be  made  to  his  love  for 
Greece  and  all  that  Greek  antiquity  has  meant 
to  the  forming  of  a  character  whose  youthful 
enthusiasm,  as  he  entered  his  eighty-first  year, 
was  not  the  least  remarkable  thing  about  this 
Scandinavian  interpreter  of  culture  throughout 
the  ages. 


128 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    SCIENTIFIC     INTERNATIONALISM     OF    GEORG 
BRANDES 

IT  is  a  good  while  since  Georg  Brandes  felt 
inclined  to  accept  personally  the  many  honors 
bestowed  on  him  because  of  his  position  in  the 
literary  world.  The  eightieth  anniversary  of  his 
birth  found  him  far  from  the  shores  of  Den- 
mark. As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  left  for  the  south 
of  Europe  in  order  to  escape  the  festivities 
planned  for  the  occasion.  Ten  years  before,  when 
he  attained  three-score  and  ten,  Danish  intel- 
lectual circles  managed  to  keep  him  home  on  the 
day  of  celebration.  Then,  as  this  year,  in  many 
other  parts  of  the  world  tributes  were  paid 
him  as  the  outstanding  figure  in  the  domain  of 
criticism. 

In  the  United  States,  New  York  and  Minne- 
apolis were  the  main  centres  paying  him  honors 
on  February  4th  last.  In  the  metropolis,  the 
American  Scandinavian  Foundation  arranged  a 
dinner  at  the  Hotel  Plaza,  which  was  at- 
tended by  many  leading  men  and  women. 

129 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Among  the  outstanding  addresses  were  those 
of  Professor  Robert  Herndon  Fife,  of  Colum- 
bia University,  and  of  Professor  Henry  Wads- 
worth  Longfellow  Dana,  of  the  Boston  Union 
College.  Professor  Dana,  who  is  a  grandson  of 
the  famous  American  poet,  had  met  Brandes  in 
France  just  ten  years  before.  Professor  Fife's 
address  was  along  the  lines  of  the  introduction 
to  the  present  book. 

"The  circumstances  of  our  meeting  were 
such  as  to  impress  his  internationalism  upon 
my  mind  from  the  start,"  said  Professor 
Dana.  "It  was  a  spot  itself  peculiarly  ap- 
propriate to  the  great  internationalist,  a  club 
of  curious  international  nature  called  the 
'Autour  du  Monde/  situated  outside  Paris, 
with  beautiful  gardens  along  the  river.  Even 
the  gardens  in  this  international  club  were 
of  an  international  character,  one  garden  being 
English,  one  Italian,  one  Japanese,  and  so  on.  I 
remember,  as  we  showed  Brandes  about  from 
garden  to  garden,  making  in  this  way  a  tour  of 
the  world,  he  would  make  brilliant  observations 
on  the  different  national  characteristics  apropos 
of  the  different  settings  of  the  various  gardens. 

"Then  again,  this  international  club  had  a 
sort  of  international  library  filled  with  books  of 

130 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

different  literatures.  And  I  remember  Brandes 
clearly  going  about  from  shelf  to  shelf,  snatch- 
ing now  at  a  book  in  one  language  and  now  at 
one  in  another,  opening  them  eagerly  and  quot- 
ing some  striking  phrase  from  them.  Then  over- 
hearing someone  condemning  some  contemporary 
radical  thinker  he  would  throw  himself  into  the 
discussion,  hotly  defending  the  heterodox  point 
of  view,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  emphasizing 
his  point  by  gesticulating  with  a  paper-cutter 
that  he  snatched  from  the  table,  the  hair 
bristling  on  his  head  and  his  speech  bristling 
with  epigrams. 

"There  were  guests  of  various  nationalities  at 
this  international  club,  and  to  them  all  Brandes 
spoke  in  their  own  language,  showing  an  ap- 
palling familiarity  with  the  language  and  the 
literature  of  each  guest.  I  remember,  for  ex- 
ample, his  quoting  to  me  lines  written  by  my 
own  grandfather  which  had  been  quite  forgotten 
by  me,  if  I  ever  knew  them. 

"At  that  time,"  Professor  Dana  continued,  "I 
happened  to  be  acting  as  Lecteur  d'Anglais  at 
the  Sorbonne,  and  I  took  the  liberty  of  asking 
Brandes  to  come  and  speak  before  the  club  we 
had  of  French  students  who  were  studying  Eng- 
lish. He  chose  as  his  subject,  The  Great  Men/ 

131 


GEORG    BRANDES 

and  we  had  notices  posted,  reading  'Georg 
Brandes :  The  Great  Man,'  so  that  some  thought 
his  talk  was  to  be  autobiographical,  that  he  was 
himself  to  be  the  hero  of  his  lecture.  The  post- 
ers, at  any  rate,  drew  an  enormous  crowd,  and 
when  the  evening  came  and  I  was  escorting 
Brandes  to  the  hall,  we  found  the  corridors  out- 
side so  packed  that  for  a  moment  'the  great  man 
himself  was  shut  out  from  his  own  lecture.  In 
momentary  vexation,  Brandes  would  lean  up 
against  the  wall  and  seize  his  head  with  both 
hands,  half  humorously.  When  finally  we  had 
cleared  a  way  for  him  to  the  platform,  his  lec- 
ture proved  to  be  a  bold  challenge  to  popular 
democracy  by  showing  how  the  welfare  of  the 
human  race  as  a  whole  depended  on  its  great 
men  and  on  recognizing  their  greatness. 

"Brandes'  own  greatness  lies  in  his  recogni- 
tion of  the  greatness  of  great  men,  no  matter 
what  their  race  or  creed.  The  history  of  his 
long  life  has  been  the  gradual  spreading  of  his 
sympathies  until  he  has  become  the  critic  of  the 
widest  international  range  in  the  world.  In  this 
almost  unusual  breadth  of  culture,  he  has  come 
to  treat  the  whole  world  as  one.  From  the  first 
he  sought  unity  and  hated  all  divisions,  and 
characteristically  his  earliest  book  was  an  attack 

132 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

on  dualism  in  life's  philosophy.  Brandes  came 
to  study  one  by  one  all  the  main  currents  of  nine- 
teenth century  literature  and  in  him  all  these 
main  currents  seem  to  be  united  as  in  an  ocean. 
At  first  it  was  Hegel  that  he  read,  he  says,  'with 
a  veritable  intoxication  of  comprehension  and 
delight.'  Then,  as  an  antidote  to  German  ab- 
straction, he  came  under  the  influence  of  the 
Frenchman,  Taine,  whom  he  met  in  Paris  and 
whose  scientific  method  revealed  to  him  the  de- 
termining influences  of  'race'  and  'milieu'  and 
'moment,'  so  that  from  now  on  Brandes  sought 
to  show  the  different  national  characteristics  of 
the  different  countries  he  studied. 

"Denmark  is  marvellously  situated  for  just 
such  an  international  point  of  view.  The  pen- 
insula of  Jutland,  jutting  out  from  the  very 
heart  of  Europe,  offered  a  detached  centre  from 
which  to  study  the  civilization  of  the  different 
nations.  Like  a  modern  Viking  of  the  spirit, 
Brandes  made  adventurous  voyages  into  the 
realm  of  gold  which  are  the  various  national  lit- 
eratures. From  the  North  and  the  East  and 
the  South  and  the  West  he  returned  to  Den- 
mark with  the  riches  he  had  gathered.  He  inter- 
preted to  his  countrymen  the  culture  of  the  rest 
of  Europe. 

133 


GEORG    BRANDES 

"But  in  interpreting  these  European  civiliza- 
tions to  Denmark,  Brandes  has  interpreted  them 
to  themselves.  It  was  Brandes  who  first  revealed 
that  great  Norwegian  'master-builder/  Ibsen.  It 
was  he  who  first  revealed  the  German  superman, 
Nietzsche.  Nietzsche  has  said  that  the  most  bril- 
liant characterization  made  of  him  was  made 
by  Brandes  when  he  described  him  as  an  'aris- 
tocratic radical/  showing  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween democrat  and  aristocrat  is  not  always  the 
same  as  between  radical  and  conservative." 

Professor  Dana  next  dwelt  on  Brandes'  pro- 
ductivity, how  no  critic  has  written  lives  of 
so  many  supermen  of  so  many  nations:  Shake- 
speare, Goethe,  Holberg,  Voltaire,  Julius  Caesar, 
Michelangelo.  He  told  of  Brandes'  love  of  liberty. 
He  had  the  honor  during  the  war  of  being  the  best 
hated  man  in  Europe.  With  the  coming  of  war, 
"Brandes  kept  his  international  point  of  view  un- 
shaken. He  denounced  the  treaty  of  peace  with 
the  same  vehemence  he  had  denounced  the  dec- 
laration of  war.  The  same  internationalism  that 
he  had  revealed  to  me  among  the  gardens  and 
the  guests  of  that  'Cercle  Autour  du  Monde/  the 
internationalism  with  which  he  had  steered  his 
courses  amidst  all  the  main  currents  of  nine- 
teenth century  European  literature,  the  interna- 

134 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

tionalism  which  he  had  maintained  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  cross-currents  of  the  great  war,  he  still 
kept  in  the  midst  of  the  great  conflicting  influ- 
ences of  the  modern  world." 

All  his  life  Georg  Brandes  has  shown  the  need 
of  appreciating  other  civilizations,  even  those  of 
our  enemies,  was  the  conclusion  of  Professor 
Dana's  significant  address  on  the  day  that  the 
Danish  critic  turned  octogenarian.  What  he  feels 
about  Europe  is  likely  to  continue  to  be  true  until 
at  length  the  great  men  of  the  nations  of  the 
earth  achieve  the  spirit  of  internationalism,  the 
scientific  internationalism  of  Brandes  himself. 

Besides  the  addresses  of  Professors  Fife  and 
Dana,  the  Hotel  Plaza  celebration  in  honor  of 
Brandes'  birthday  was  made  conspicuous  by  the 
introductory  remarks  of  Dr.  Henry  Goddard 
Leach,  whose  long  association  with  the  Ameri- 
can Scandinavian  Foundation,  first  as  secretary, 
and  editor  of  the  "Review,"  and  later  as  acting 
in  an  advisory  capacity,  fitted  him  eminently  for 
the  task  of  speaking  on  the  influence  of  Georg 
Brandes  on  world-literature.  The  audience,  com- 
posed largely  of  men  and  women  prominent  in 
literary  and  artistic  circles,  listened  to  a  graphic 
account  of  the  main  factors  that  had  gone  to  the 
making  of  Brandes'  fame  throughout  the  world. 

13S 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BRANDES  AS  SEEN   BY  COLLEAGUES  AND   CONTEM- 
PORARIES 

THE  late  James  Huneker,  who  bore  a  certain 
intellectual  resemblance  to  Georg  Brandes, 
and  between  whom  and  the  Danish  critic  there 
had  sprung  up  a  friendship  that  lasted  until  the 
former's  death,  on  Brandes'  visit  to  the  United 
States  had  the  opportunity  to  personally  study 
the  man  to  whom  he  had  dedicated  his  "Egoists." 
Very  shortly  before  his  death,  Huneker  wrote 
in  the  "New  York  Times" : 

"When  I  saw  Dr.  Georg  Brandes  at  the  Hotel 
Astor  a  few  months  before  the  war  I  told  him 
he  resembled  the  bust  made  of  him  by  Klinger. 
It  was  the  first  time  I  had  talked  to  the  cele- 
brated Danish  author.  Then  past  seventy,  as 
active  as  a  young  man,  I  could  see  no  reason  why 
he  shouldn't  live  to  be  a  centenarian.  An  active 
brain  is  lodged  in  his  nimble  body.  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  ask  him  no  questions  about  America. 

"The  affections  of  Brandes  have  always  been 
bestowed  upon  the  literatures  of  England  and 

136 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

France.  Maurice  Biegeon  has  said  that  Brandes 
did  for  the  nineteenth  century  what  Sainte- 
Beuve  did  for  the  seventeenth  in  his  'History 
of  Port  Royal/  He  will  remain  the  arch  type 
of  cosmopolitan  critics  for  future  generations.  A 
humanist,  the  mind  of  Brandes  is  steel-colored. 
Ductile,  when  white-hot,  it  flows  like  lava  from 
a  volcano  in  eruption;  but  always  it  is  steel, 
whether  liquified  or  rigid.  Preeminently  it  is  the 
fighting  mind.  He  objects  to  being  described  as 
'brilliant.'  The  model  of  Brandes  as  portrait 
painter  of  ideas  and  individuals  is  Velasquez,  be- 
cause Velasquez  is  not  brilliant,  but  true. 

"Yet  he  is  brilliant  and  lucid,  and  steel-like, 
whether  writing  of  Shakespeare  or  Lassalle.  An 
ardent  upholder  of  Taine  and  the  psychology  of 
race,  he  contends  that  in  the  individual,  not  in 
the  people,  lies  the  only  hope  for  progress.  He  is 
altogether  for  the  psychology  of  the  individual. 
Like  Carlyle,  he  has  the  cult  of  the  great  man. 
The  fundamental  question  is :  Can  the  well-being 
of  the  race,  which  is  the  end  of  all  effort,  be 
attained  without  great  men?  'I  say  no,  and 
again,  no!'  he  cries.  He  is  a  firm  believer  that 
every  tub  should  stand  on  its  own  bottom." 

Richard  Le  Gallienne's  appreciation  of  Georg 
Brandes  is  no  less  heartfelt  than  Huneker's. 

137 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Nearly  two  decades  ago  he  expressed  himself 
as  follows:  "In  Georg  Brandes  we  see  criticism 
fulfilling  its  highest  and  broadest  functions.  To 
speak  of  him  as  a  critic  in  the  customary  limited 
sense  in  which  the  word  is  applied  to  reviewers 
of  books  or  connoisseurs  of  the  arts  in  general 
would  be  misleading;  as  misleading  as  to  speak 
of  Georg  Meredith  as  a  novelist,  meaning  there- 
by a  purveyor  of  frivolous  entertainment  for  the 
sentimental. 

"The  great  critic  is  the  interpreter  of  life  as 
expressed  through  the  medium  of  the  arts.  As 
literature  is  the  artistic  medium  employing  as  its 
material  the  most  vital  and  various  of  human 
interests,  it  follows  that  a  really  great  literary 
critic  has  the  world  for  his  province,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  his  interpretation  of  literature  is 
fundamental  and  catholic,  he  becomes  an  original 
creative  exponent  of  human  life. 

"In  other  words,"  declares  Le  Gallienne,  "your 
great  literary  critic  is  a  philosopher  who  makes 
use  of  literature  to  interpret  human  nature  and 
human  history.  Such  a  critic,  at  all  events,  is 
Dr.  Brandes.  His  real  business  is  with  hu- 
manity. Many  students  are  merely  students  of 
aesthetics.  They  approach  the  arts  from  the 
pleasure  point  of  view,  analyzing  the  kind  of 

138 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

pleasure  they  give,  and  determining  their  purely 
aesthetic — or,  as  we  loosely  say,  'artistic/  value. 
This  is  necessarily  a  part  of  any  critic's  business, 
but  Georg  Brandes  is  primarily  a  philosopher  and 
historian  and  only  secondarily  the  professor  of 
aesthetics." 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  what  Richard 
Le  Gallienne  says  with  regard  to  the  qualities 
that  mark  Georg  Brandes  as  an  outstanding  fig- 
ure among  the  world's  leading  intellectuals.  We 
have  already  seen  how,  according  to  Prof.  Fife's 
introductory  remarks,  Brandes  himself  considers 
the  term  'philosopher'  too  all-embracing  for  him 
and  how  'critic/  in  his  estimation,  does  not  go  far 
enough.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  aesthetics  lie  very 
close  to  the  heart  of  the  Danish  scholar  and  it 
ought  not  be  forgotten  that  his  early  aspirations 
went  in  the  direction  of  securing  that  chair  in 
the  University  of  Copenhagen.  That  his  remark- 
able reasoning  powers  are  in  line  with  philo- 
sophical requirements  there  is  no  doubt.  Brandes 
thinks  deeply  on  the  great  questions  that  concern 
mankind.  But  the  abstract,  after  all,  is  not  his 
proper  sphere.  Pragmatic  to  a  degree,  there  is 
something  of  William  James  in  his  makeup,  al- 
beit he  falls  short  in  approaching  the  James 
theory  because  of  his  outspoken  policy  of  want- 

139 


GEORG    BRANDES 

ing  to  make  the  theoretical  absolutely  practical. 

Perhaps  no  Danish  scholar  has  stood  closer  to 
Georg  Brandes  during  the  past  sixty  years  than 
Professor  Harald  Hoffding,  who  occupies  the 
chair  of  philosophy  at  the  University  of  Copen- 
hagen. Professor  Hoffding  is  almost  of  the 
identical  age  as  Brandes.  No  man  should  be 
better  able  to  judge  of  his  fellow-countryman 
than  he.  What  he  has  recently  had  to  say  on 
the  subject  carries  weight. 

Professor  Hoffding,  writing  on  the  occasion 
of  Brandes'  eightieth  birthday,  after  paying 
tribute  to  the  latter's  masterly  skill  in  analyzing 
the  characters  of  the  great  men  of  the  past,  told 
of  the  sensation  created  in  Denmark  when 
Brandes  first  returned  from  abroad  and  startled 
the  conservative  element  with  new  ideas  that 
were  nothing  less  than  revolutionary.  "The  pic- 
ture of  the  outside  world  that  he  presented  led 
into  new  and  unexplored  regions,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Hoffding.  "He  instilled  a  desire  for  in- 
dependent thinking.  He  touched  on  many  prob- 
lems, sometimes  playfully  and  simply;  again  in 
a  spirit  of  indignation  and  defiance  of  the  con- 
ventions. He  not  only  stirred  up  the  purely  lit- 
erary circles,  but  in  the  domain  of  religion  he 

140 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

caused  an  upheaval  that  was  nothing  less  than 
cyclonic." 

Professor  Hoffding  emphasized  that  Georg 
Brandes  is  possessed  of  a  most  extraordinary 
ability  to  both  create  enthusiasm  and  antagon- 
ism. His  attacks  against  the  hypocritical  and  the 
false  at  times  would  overlap  so  that  the  genuine 
in  religious  feeling  would  suffer  from  his  sallies. 
In  the  eyes  of  many  he  was  looked  upon  as  only 
desirous  of  breaking  down  established  usages. 

"However,"  continues  Professor  Hoffding, 
"the  young  people  came  flocking  to  the 
standard  of  Georg  Brandes.  He  is  the  one  who, 
more  than  any  other  here  in  Denmark,  succeeded 
in  creating  an  enthusiastic  following.  That  later 
a  number  left  his  ranks  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  mental  nourishment  that  he  had  provided  was 
no  longer  of  a  kind  to  satisfy  them.  But  the 
main  reason  why  opposition  against  him  has  been 
diminishing  is  not  so  much  because  the  irreligious 
ideas  that  he  advanced  have  been  accepted  as 
correct,  but  rather  because  the  majority  of  people 
are  beginning  to  realize  that  problems  of  this 
nature  are  not  to  be  solved  by  either  hiding 
or  crushing  them,  but  must  be  placed  in  the  broad 
daylight  so  that  each  one  may  reach  a  solution 
through  individual  experience." 

141 


GEORG    BRANDES 

Professor  Hoffding  expresses  the  opinion  that 
Brandes'  strength  lies  in  his  aesthetic  viewpoint, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  this  is  also  the  weak- 
ness in  his  intellectual  armor.  When  he  analyzes, 
criticises,  judges,  always  it  is  beauty  that  is  his 
measuring  stick.  To  him  anything  that  is  beau- 
tiful must  also  be  good.  In  spite  of  his  match- 
less versatility,  he  suffers  from  a  certain  intel- 
lectual stigmatism  which  very  often  leads  him  to 
the  wrong  perspective. 

"But  after  all,"  concludes  Professor  Hoffding. 
"we  as  a  nation  are  indebted  to  him  for  innumer- 
able things.  His  love  for  Denmark  and  for  the 
Danish  language  transcends  mere  words.  The 
beauty,  freshness,  depth,  that  pervade  his  de- 
scription of  literary  history  these  many  years 
ago  I  have  never  forgotten.  The  young  doctor 
of  1871  is  now  an  old  man,  but  the  fire  of  his 
youth  has  never  been  extinguished.  He  remains 
in  possession  of  all  that  genius  which  was  his 
marked  characteristic  in  that  long  ago." 

Professor  Otto  Jespersen,  conceded  to  be  the 
greatest  living  authority  on  the  English  language, 
and  at  the  time  of  Brandes'  golden  jubilee  Rector 
at  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  in  addressing 
Brandes  on  that  occasion  spoke  feelingly  of  what 
the  university  owed  the  distinguished  critic. 

142 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

"What  a  change  in  sentiment !"  declared  Profes- 
sor Jespersen,  "between  the  public's  opinion  at  this 
day  and  fifty  years  ago  when  Georg  Brandes 
struck  consternation  in  the  ranks  of  traditional 
conservatism.  I  am  proud  that  it  has  fallen  to 
me  to  bid  him  welcome  in  the  year  of  my  rector- 
ship. Brandes  has  always  fought  with  open 
vizier,  for  what  he  considered  right  and  just.  He 
has  never  permitted  his  sword  to  rust." 


143 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE  LITERARY  WORKSHOP  OF  A  GREAT  EUROPEAN 

CRITIC 

HE  literary  workshop  of  a  noted  writer 
always  holds  out  a  certain  amount  of  fas- 
cination, and  in  the  case  of  Georg  Brandes  this 
is  especially  true,  since  he  so  seldom  takes  the 
public  into  his  confidence  with  regard  to  methods 
peculiar  to  himself.  However,  now  and  then 
there  have  been  exceptions  when  he  has  revealed 
himself  in  working  harness.  A  case  in  point  may 
be  cited  when  some  time  ago  Anders  Kirkeby,  a 
well-known  Danish  journalist,  wrote  an  inter- 
view which  was  published  in  "Politiken,"  of 
Copenhagen. 

"Politiken"  ever  since  its  establishment  has 
been  the  one  Danish  newspaper  in  which 
Brandes'  essays  and  sketches  have  appeared  ex- 
clusively. Henrik  Cavling,  its  editor,  is  one  of 
the  ablest  European  journalists  of  to-day.  De- 
scribing his  interview  with  Brandes,  Mr.  Kirke- 
by wrote :  "I  found  Brandes  sitting  in  the  study 
of  his  apartment  on  the  Strand  Boulevard,  be- 

144 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

tween  rows  of  bookcases  reaching  from  floor  to 
ceiling.  The  wall  space  did  not  seem  to  allow 
room  for  a  single  picture.  Only  in  the  bay  win- 
dow one  discovers  a  few  plaster  casts  of  Floren- 
tine medallions. 

"As  is  his  custom,  Brandes  entrenched  him- 
self behind  his  writing  table,  where  notepaper, 
newspapers,  letters  and  books  appear  to  be  in  an 
interminable  flux  between  a  broken  inkstand,  a 
tray  with  penholders  and  a  bottle  of  mineral 
water.  Dangerously  near  the  edge  of  the  fur- 
ther corner  of  the  table  stands  a  tall  vase  con- 
taining deep-red  roses.  On  other  tables,  under 
the  tables,  on  chairs,  in  the  corners  of  the  room, 
on  the  window  sill,  everywhere  stacks  of  books, 
heaps  of  letters.  A  pear-shaped  electric  bulb 
hanging  from  the  ceiling  furnishes  the  light, 
while  a  green  shade  protects  against  the  glare. 

"And  this  is  all !"  exclaims  Mr.  Kirkeby.  "In 
this  environment,  in  this  workshop  where  for 
fifty  years  the  strongest  intellectual  weapons  of 
liberty  and  enlightenment  have  been  forged,  be- 
tween that  broken  inkstand  and  the  vase  with  its 
red  roses  we  have  been  compelled  to  look  for 
Denmark's  mental  focus  during  half  a  century." 

What,  then,  has  been  the  real  influence  of 
Brandes  on  Danish  literature,  the  quality  by 

145 


GEORG    BRANDES 

which  the  future  is  likely  to  pass  judgment  on 
his  achievements?  It  is  a  question  to  which  an 
answer  is  not  easy.  First  of  all,  it  is  an  unde- 
niable fact  that  through  him  Danish  intellectual 
circles  of  the  eighties  were  stirred  to  their 
foundation;  that  he  created  a  following  of  no 
mean  importance.  It  is  true,  as  Professor 
Hoffding  has  remarked  that  there  came  a  time 
when  some  of  those  who  formerly  classed  them- 
selves his  disciples  struck  out  along  paths  that 
went  into  opposite  directions  to  what  Brandes 
claimed  to  be  the  right  road.  At  the  same  time, 
whether  they  admit  it  or  not,  the  seed  sown  by 
him  found  lodgment  almost  everywhere. 

In  a  very  interesting  work,  "Denmark  and  the 
Danes,"  of  which  William  J.  Harvey  and  Chris- 
tian Reppien  are  the  joint  authors,  the  chapter 
on  modern  literature  appears  so  pertinent  to  the 
present  consideration  of  Georg  Brandes  that  it 
is  worth  quoting  from. 

"A  study  of  the  most  distinctive  Danish  lit- 
erature of  the  nineteenth  century,"  we  read,  "re- 
veals a  gradual  progression  from  an  ideal  ro- 
manticism to  a  strong  and  forceful  realism. 
.  .  .  During  the  war  of  1848-1850,  national- 
ism, patriotism,  liberalism,  introduced  a  new  note 
into  Danish  literature.  Then  followed  the  re- 

146 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

action  consequent  upon  the  failure  of  the  war  of 
1864.  There  ensued  a  decade  of  stagnation;  a 
fresh  impetus  was  required.  Denmark  waited 
for  the  new  pen  which  was  to  usher  her  literature 
upon  its  latest  phase. 

"The  man  who  more  than  all  others  created 
this  new  era  was  Georg  Brandes.  He  was  the 
great  literary  engineer.  He  dug  the  big  canals 
through  which  the  literary  streams  of  other  coun- 
tries flowed  over  Denmark.  He  irrigated  his  own 
country  with  the  mighty  Nile  waters  of  France 
and  Germany,  Italy  and  England.  He  was  in- 
tensely realistic,  a  powerful  and  cultured  oppo- 
nent of  'rose-pink'  idealism  both  in  literature 
and  art.  His  first  lectures  aroused  a  storm  of 
opposition,  followed  by  embittered  warfare  of 
words,  declaimed  and  written.  Yet  he  won  dis- 
ciples— Holger  Drachmann,  Schandorph,  and 
others.  The  quarrel  between  the  old  and  the 
new  school  was  waged  in  verse  and  prose.  .  .  . 

"The  writings  of  Brandes  are  often  said  to 
be  anti-national  and  anti-religious.  Rather  are 
they  cosmopolitan  and  agnostic.  He  is  a  Dane, 
though  he  has  lived  as  much  in  Berlin  and  Paris 
as  in  Copenhagen.  It  is  possible  that  the  move- 
ment of  which  he  was  the  forerunner  and  founder 
has  been  carried  much  further  than  he  himself 

147 


GEORG    BRANDES 

desired,  for  in  later  years  he  has  not  commended 
all  the  exaggerations  or  the  literary  excesses  of 
his  followers. 

"Worthiest  perhaps  of  all  the  disciples  of  the 
new  school  was  Holger  Drachmann  (1846-1908), 
a  lyricist  of  great  power.  His  novels,  poems  and 
dramas  all  reveal  an  intimate  touch  with  nature. 
He  is  mercurial.  His  emotions  pass  swiftly  as 
cloud  shadows  over  the  sea.  His  play,  'Once 
Upon  a  Time/  is  once  of  the  greatest  attractions 
of  the  repertoire  of  the  Royal  Theatre,  while  his 
poems,  'Songs  of  the  Sea'  and  'English  Social- 
ists/ have  a  graceful  charm  and  a  full-throated 
sweetness  of  melody  worthy  of  Keats  and  Morris. 

"In  1885  Drachmann  abandoned  his  old  mas- 
ter, Brandes,  denounced  the  exotic  tradition,  and 
declared  himself  a  Conservative  and  a  patriot. 

"J.  P.  Jacobsen  (1847-1885)  was  another  of 
the  new  writers  who  had  bathed  in  the  rich 
streams  with  which  Brandes  flooded  Denmark. 
He  is  a  master  student  of  the  soul.  His  works 
proclaim  him  a  metaphysician,  with  a  scientific 
power  of  observation  and  analysis.  Like  Goethe 
and  Wordsworth,  he  is  the  poet-scientist,  placing 
his  trust  in  the  mind  and  the  senses.  His  style 
is  wonderfully  colored,  but  it  is  not  fantastic. 

"Sophus  Schandorph  (1836-1901),  who  wrote 
148 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

'Idealism  and  Realism/  was  the  scribe  of  the 
lower  middle  classes.  His  wit  is  blunt  and  biting 
and  not  over-particular,  his  outlook  on  life  that 
of  a  man  who  has  probed  the  soul  of  things  and 
found  there  vanity,  yet  who  accepts  the  position 
with  a  certain  rough  and  blustering  good  humor. 
Schandorph's  style  is  strong  and  masculine,  often 
lacking  in  both  grace  and  restraint  and  not  al- 
ways free  from  the  grosser  faults  of  bad  taste 
and  exaggeration.  But — and  this  is  a  virtue 
of  a  kind — he  remained  true  to  the  Brandes 
tradition." 

These  few  instances  are  set  down  as  repre- 
sentative examples  of  the  Brandes  influence  on 
Danish  literature.  They  are  not  conclusive  evi- 
dence, but  to  a  degree  establish  the  fact  that  vari- 
ous schools  of  writing  in  Scandiriavia  owe  their 
origin  to  what  the  great  critic  planned  more  than 
half  a  century  ago. 


149 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE    BRANDES   ARCHIVE    IN    THE    ROYAL    LIBRARY 
OF  COPENHAGEN 

POSTERITY  has  a  rather  curious  way  of 
dealing  with  the  past  performances  of  men 
of  letters.  Whether  Georg  Brandes  will  live  in 
the  minds  of  people  throughout  the  intellectual 
world  for  any  considerable  time  beyond  what  is 
reasonably  certain  is  something  that  the  future 
alone  can  determine. 

But  in  the  land  that  at  first  misunderstood  his 
mission  in  life  but  later  made  amends  for  its 
shortsightedness,  there  has  been  started  an  en- 
terprise which  is  measurably  sure  to  make  Georg 
Brandes'  achievements  stand  as  a  telling  demon- 
stration of  a  career  as  rare  as  it  is  unlikely  to 
be  duplicated.  The  Brandes  Archive  in  the 
famous  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen  is  the  in- 
strumentality through  which  the  Danish  scholar 
will  live  again  as  generation  after  generation 
in  the  capital  of  Denmark  is  afforded  the  oppor- 
tunity to  stand  face  to  face  with  his  vast  pro- 
ISO 


IN    LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

duction;  books  of  his  in  every  European  lan- 
guage, the  original  manuscripts,  letters  by  the 
thousands  addressed  to  Brandes  from  almost 
every  part  of  the  world. 

The  Brandes  Archive  is  the  result  of  a  con- 
certed move  on  the  part  of  a  number  of  his  lit- 
erary admirers  on  the  seventieth  anniversary  of 
his  birth,  ten  years  ago.  A  permanent  commit- 
tee was  organized,  consisting  of  State  Councillor 
Hegel,  Otto  Benzon,  Vilhelm  Andersen,  Henrik 
Pontoppidan,  Valdemar  Vedel  and  Henri  Nath- 
ansen.  Carl  S.  Petersen,  Chief  Librarian  of  the 
Royal  Danish  Library,  was  chosen  archivist. 

Not  only  will  this  archive  house  Brandes'  own 
works  and  correspondence  but  innumerable 
books  by  other  authors  dedicated  to  him  by  writ- 
ers throughout  the  world.  Brandes  consented  to 
leave  all  of  his  manuscripts  and  letters  that  may 
be  obtained  after  his  death,  while  one  of  the  cab- 
inets already  contains  his  correspondence  with 
J.  P.  Jacobsen,  Nietzsche  and  August  Strind- 
berg.  The  real  interest  will  come  when  there 
will  be  gathered  together  in  the  Brandes  Archive 
the  thousands  of  letters  he  has  written  to  au- 
thors, statesmen,  personal  friends  and  others 
during  his  long  career. 

Already  a  great  many  people  have  visited  the 

151 


Brandes  Archive,  where  a  bust  of  the  great  critic 
greets  the  visitors.  It  is  the  work  of  Max 
Klinger  and  is  a  gift  of  Brandes  himself.  So 
far  he  has  never  paid  a  visit  to  the  archive  that 
is  to  keep  his  memory  green.  He  declares  it 
would  be  too  much  like  paying  a  call  on  one's 
own  tomb. 

Whether  the  youngest  generation  of  Danish 
writers  is  fully  conscious  of  the  great  debt  it 
owes  to  Georg  Brandes  for  his  pioneer  work  in 
the  literary  vineyard  is  a  debatable  question.  His 
early  struggles  were  witnessed  by  a  compara- 
tively small  company  of  those  who  remain  alive 
to-day.  But  in  looking  over  the  names  of  those 
identified  with  the  establishment  of  the  Brandes 
Archive,  these  men  by  their  interest  show  that 
they  value  what  he  has  achieved  for  Danish  let- 
ters. When  in  the  days  to  come  lovers  of  Shake- 
speare visit  Elsinore  for  the  relation  it  bears 
to  the  Prince  of  Denmark  whom  the  Eng- 
lish dramatist  immortalized,  they  should  derive 
additional  pleasure  and  information  by  including 
the  Royal  Danish  Library  in  their  itinerary  of 
Copenhagen  sightseeing,  since  Georg  Brandes,  as 
the  Archive  will  testify,  did  so  much  to  give 
modern  interpretation  to  not  only  Hamlet  but 
the  entire  range  of  Shakespearean  productions. 

152 


University  of  California 

•WK  no  H  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  .  BOX  OT 
LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095  13sl 
Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which 

I 


A 000692518     4 


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Univer 

Soul 

Lit 


ill! 

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